Do you know what you want to do after Matric?
This is a hard decision, one that requires a lot of information and careful consideration, but IkamvaYouth and Equal Education are here to help. We would like to invite you to our 2012 Careers Indaba.
Come join us on the 14 September 2012 in the Zolani Centre in Nyanga (across the road from the Nyanga bus and taxi rank), and is open to grades 8-12.
Address:
The Zolani Centre,
Sithandatu Avenue,
Nyanga
7750
Directions to Zolani Centre
From Cape Town city centre:
Get on to the N2 toward the Cape Town Airport and Somerset West.
At junction 18 take right on to Borcherds Quarry Road (signposted to Nyanga/M22)
Follow this road down to the T- junction at the taxi rank and take a left on to Sithandatu Avenue
The Zolani Centre is on your left immediately and you can turn into the car park straight after the first set of robots.
The purpose of the Careers Indaba is to expose you to new opportunities, provide information about various study options, learnerships and volunteer programs, resources and support structures. In addition the Careers Indaba will offer workshops on CV writing, interview techniques and personal development. These are skills you will need wherever your path takes you!
Why should I come?
Whether you want to continue your studies, start working; find out about on the job training these choices require information and planning. Alternatively do you want to apply for a volunteer program or internship? It is important to start investigating your options now. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to talk directly to the people who are there to guide you in the right direction.
What are my options?
1/ Continue your studies: Do you want to become a teacher, doctor, electrician, scientist, a lawyer, hairdresser, accountant or nurse? All these positions require you to study further. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to discuss your options for universities, colleges, and Further Education Training (FET colleges)
2/ Working & on-the-job training: Do you want to make your own way and be an entrepreneur? Find our what it involves running your own business or learn while working through learnership programmes. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to find out about these options.
3/Volunteering, Internships and Gap Year Programmes: Do you want to spend some time deciding what your next step is, or getting to know yourself and the world about you a little better? Do you want to give back to your community or volunteer and gain valuable experience in a specific field? The Careers Indaba will give you the opportunity to find out more about this.
Spread the word, looking forward to seeing you all there!
IkamvaYouth’s 2011 Annual Report is out and available here for download!
Many thanks to our super-talented designer Lynne Stuart, to Julia de Kadt for proofreading, and to everyone who contributed stories, quotes and photos. We love it, and hope that all the readers will too!
Ikamvanites got through some really rough times in 2011: our office was petrol-bombed, a devastating fire in Masiphumelele destroyed 1000s of homes, and learners spent a week rioting after their classmate was badly injured while beaten at school. 2011 was also a year of tragic loss: three heroes (Mphumzi Klaas, Nomzamo Kali and Dave Eadie) all passed away before their time, but not before they’d each made significant contributions to IkamvaYouth and South Africa at large.
There were some good times too: 560 ikamvanites (learners & volunteers) spent their holidays at one of the five winter schools (hosted by TSiBA, UWC, Masi library, DUT and SEF), and 426 learners achieved more than 75% attendance, three times a week, through all four terms. 100 tutors regularly spent their spare time tutoring at the five branches. The ikamvanites’ hard work paid off: 99% of learners in grades 8-11 passed onto the next grade, and 85% of our matrics passed (41% Bachelor, 39% Diploma passes). 69% of matriculants are at tertiary institutions, and 9% are in learnerships and/or employment.
IkamvaYouth’s track record of impressive results has led to some important and exciting attention. We were visited by the Minister of Basic Education (twice!) and mentioned in her budget speech; the Duchess of Cornwall popped in, and Jonathan Jansen inspired our learners at the Masi branch. We were featured in national media including Business Day, SAFM and SABC2 and MNet, made our own Live magazine, went to Slovenia and won a bunch of awards.
A key organisational objective for 2011 was consolidation, and despite the challenges, we’ve managed to achieve this; thanks to the support from our visionary donors. We ran our first-ever national strategic planning week (when many of us met the colleagues with whom we collaborate online on a daily basis in person for the first time); open-sourced our model through the ikamvanitezone (where you’ll find shared information and resources, how-to guides, tools & templates); had an independent evaluation conducted by Servaas van der Berg and his team of education economists, and grew our team.
Over the past year, IkamvaYouth has received 28 requests from communities in all provinces to establish more branches. And after our year of heads-down consolidation, we’re ready to step up and respond. 2012 has seen two new branches established: African- Bank-funded Ivory Park and ABI-funded Umlazi. Next on the horizon are Grahamstown and another two Gauteng branches. We’ve also begun thinking about ways to generate income and sustainably scale expansively, without entirely relying on donor funding in the future.
Ultimately though, IkamvaYouth’s sustainability lies with the ikamvanites. During our first few years, people would often tell us sagely that “initiatives that rely completely on volunteers aren’t sustainable”. We don’t get that anymore. And indeed, ikamvanites have shown that not only is the model sustainable due to the learners becoming tutors, and the tutors being so committed, but that volunteers produce results in contexts where few can.
We invite you to get involved in whatever way, and be a part of the change we need in many more communities throughout the country.
We hope you’ll enjoy the 2011 Annual Report multi-media experience we’ve curated for you, and make the most of the hyperlinks providing detail behind the headlines to youtube clips, blog posts and reports.
Thanks again to every indivdual who played your part in enabling all that was achieved and overcome in 2011, and to those who’re boosting us to ramp it up for 2012!
Winter school snuck up on us this year, and not in an unassuming king of way, kind of when a loud bang goes off next to you when you least expecting it kind of way Yes… just like that!
160 learners, 40 tutors, 3 busses and loads of enthusiasm, excitement and passion charged their way down the N2 to UCT Middle Campus for 10 days of learning, discovering and fun.
It’s hard to believe what we work so hard to plan for months before all ends seemingly faster than when it began! And with SO many amazing workshops, challenging tutoring times and passion from all the volunteers and learners it’s hard to give an overview of what happened this year, but I’ll try!
– Grade 11 and 12 chemistry workshops in the UCT Chemistry Labs – facilitated by Thobela Bixa, check out his incredible achievement here
– Tutoring for all the grades working through past exam papers and Answer Series books. With over 40 volunteers we achieved a ratio today of 1:4 learners per tutor! Talk about an intense time!
– PSH (Peers in Sexual Health) ran self-awareness workshops, while Sunstep got involved making alarms and facilitating other experiments with physics students.
– Rose, a volunteer from Stanford is working this week on a photography workshop, while other students got involved in deep debate.
– Andreas and his team from ERM, and Matthew from Cape Leopard Trust made sure the students got to grips with our environment, learning about how to make their immediate environment more sustainable, going for walks in Tokai forest finding a few wild animals along the way..
– Capitec ran some financial literacy training workshops, have a read about how they went here
– Nadia ran a very creative workshop where learners molded their own pots from clay (a little messy, a LOT of fun)
– Nkuli and the guys from Live Magazine were back this year for some photo shoot action, as well as creating content for their YouTube channel
– South African Astronomical Observatory ran workshops about what’s happening in our solar system, while the week ended off with Joy from UCT Wellness Centre putting our students through their dramatic paces presenting various health issues
Not to forget while this is all happening the Grade 11 & 12 students all ran through Operation Fikelela, a computer literacy program, while tutors set projects, homework and feedback sessions for all the grades.
Tuesday (26 June) in the first week also marked the one-year anniversary of the passing of Mphumzi Klaas, our friend, our confidant and a huge part of the Makhaza branch. We began the very emotional day with a very moving memorial service with a few people speaking, a video being show and most poignantly the choir singing moving the room to fresh tears as if one year ago was yesterday. And while the Ikamvanites once again balance grieving and all the madness that winter school brings, they did this instead of with incredible sadness and heavy hearts, but with a spirit of tenacity and perseverance they threw themselves into tutoring and workshops, with a renewed commitment to making this the best winter school possible, to show that through adversity and sadness, good can come, that people when united can make the impossible happen.
WOW! With so much happening, the biggest winter school IY has ever had finished with bang, and almost as fast as it arrived it was all over, classrooms packed up and cleaned, busses full to bursting on a day with some of the biggest downpour Cape Town has seen this winter, I can only begin to think of all the fun and excitement we can expect next year! Only after a loooooooooooong rest though…
A huge Huge HUUUUUGE thanks to ALL the workshop facilitators, tutors and learners – Your passion, commitment, excitement and leadership shown over these two weeks make this one of the best winter schools ever! Also to Lolita, Deidre and all that UCT for availing the space to us, BIG UP!!!
While all the Makhaza students enjoy the last week of their winter school holidays, taking a much needed break from the intense focused energy needed for winter school, the Western Cape matrics have given up their entire holiday to continue with tutoring, mentoring, exam preparation, and tertiary applications.
This week sees intensive academic writing and bursary application writing workshops being run by Rose and Francisca, two volunteers from Stanford university, as well as each matric filling out at least 5 application forms for tertiary. It’s only Wednesday and so far everyone has applied for UCT, TSiBA, UWC, CPUT, Northlink and a few for Stellenbosch University. All this interspersed with tutoring, tutoring and more tutoring (with the odd test thrown in..)
Big up matrics!! The end is nearly in sight, by giving up your holiday for this last gasp of intensive tutoring and mentoring it’s setting yourself up for a spectacular finish at the end of the year!
There are only a few days left, if you are interested in tutoring or mentoring the matrics, please email liesel@ikamvayouth.org, alternatively call Zukile on 021 362 6799
Every once in a while someone comes along into your life that forces you to examine your own, examine the way you relate to other people, the way you pay it forward, the way you appreciate every little thing that comes your way. Unathi is one of those people. She started as a volunteer in 2009 at the Makhaza branch and very quickly integrated herself into every little inch of everything we do, a walking embodiment of all the values we as Ikamvanites hold in our hearts and try live by every day.
So quickly did she become part of the branch and as the head of two programs, we never thought of the possibility of ever losing her to the corportate world!
Unathi and Torie
“My name is Unathi Smile, joined Ikamva Youth in 2009 as a volunteer. The main subjects I tutored were Maths, Accounting, Business Economics and Economics. I started tutoring the younger grades especially the grade 10s. I matriculated in 2006 from Harry Gwala Secondary; in 2010 I graduated in ND: Management at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. In 2012 I graduated in Btech: Quality from the same institution. In between studying, I maintained volunteering at Ikamva and I tutored the older grades. In 2011 I tutored intensely which resulted in me becoming a coach in a computer program called Khan Academy. This did not end there I became the director of the Khan Academy program.
Capitec Bank hosted Competency Tests during the March school holidays to help IkamvaYouth develop a benchmark for which we can compare results, which I also took part in. In a matter of 3 weeks I received a phone call from the bank for an interview. Right after the interview I waited for full two weeks and heard the news I have wanted to hear, I had passed the interview!
The experience I have gained from working with the kids and the knowledge I have gained from studying for 5 years made me the leader I am today.”
So today is Unathi’s first day at her new job! And while we are very sad at Makhaza not to have her around everyday, this is the whole reason why we do what we do – people paying it forward in their lives, pulling themselves and each other out of povery. Unathi we know you will be a HUGE success at Capitec, and they will love you as much as we do!
Chilling with the boys
About 40 Grade 10 learners from both the Ebony Park and Ivory Park branches in Gauteng attended the Hip2b2 Innovation Challenge Introduction Event. The focus of the event was to spark the interest of learners in Maths and Science and they were told that their innovation could win them the ” SA Young Innovator of the year award.”
Maths, Science and Technology related topics where presented to the learners in a fun, interesting and relevant way. It was a fun-filled afternoon event with activites, team challenges and videos introducing learners to the world of innovation, science and engineering. Learners were given guidance on how maths and science lay foundations or building blocks for careers in the fields of innovation, technology, healthcare, safety and transport.
HIP2B² has partnered with 3M, a diversified technology company serving customers and communities with innovative products and services and industry leaders in innovative solutions for everyday life, and our learners got to see how exciting maths and science can be.
Our learners are geared up and ready to show the world how they can contribute to their communities positively.
Lloyd Lungu