In November 2011 Masiphumelele Library in partnership with Edunova and IkamvaYouth became the recipients of an EIFL-PLIP grant.
EIFL (Electronic Information For Libraries) is an international organisation that is making a marked impact on the library world. With their slogan ‘Knowledge without Boundaries’ they are committed to developing a global network of libraries and their partners. The PLIP (Public Library Innovation Programme) grant supports innovative solutions to address socio-economic problems in developing countries.
Thanks to the grant, the Masiphumelele Library’s existing substandard computer facility will go through a dramatic transformation and will be updated with computers, projectors, printers and scanners. This new computer centre will be one of a kind in Masiphumelele and will offer an exciting space for youth to engage with technology and develop their computer skills.
The grant is not only concerned with hardware and the facility itself. EIFL is part of a global library initiative that aims to upscale the role that libraries can play in community development. To make a lasting impact in a sustainable way, EIFL promotes that libraries and their partners must advocate for themselves, to gain recognition as key players in the field of international development.
The new library at Kranj is offering innovative solutions using technology, to address societal problems
It is this that led Susan Alexander (Masiphumelele Librarian) and myself to Slovenia for a conference on Advocacy and Impact Assessment. Over the course of 4 days we under went training through the practical application of advocacy and communication strategy.
Colleagues from Estonia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kazakhstan in a discussion session
The people we met were inspiring and the skills we developed have empowered Masiphumelele Library and IkamvaYouth to embark on increased advocacy activities for the causes for which we work.
The first step is to get the centre up and running. The computers and desks are being fitted in the next 2 weeks and our facilitator, Nyasha Sithole, is undergoing intensive training, supported by Edunova. Once established, the centre opens up a range of exciting opportunities and possibilities for Ikamvanites and the wider library community.
First and foremost the centre will give all Ikamvanites direct access to a computer literacy programme. In addition the centre will engage young people in career guidance activities and assist and empower learners and the unemployed to access the workplace.
This is an exciting development for the Masiphumelele Library and IkamvaYouth is proud to be a key partner in establishing the library as a centre for community empowerment.
Keep and eye on news about the centre and the projects that will take place.
District Co-ordinator IkamavaYouth KZN
IkamvaYouth is a township-based non-profit organisation, established in 2003. With branches in five townships nationally, IkamvaYouth seeks to appoint a District Co-ordinator (KZN) based in Durban. S/he will be based at in a township, and must be a social entrepreneur who is passionate about the power of education to transform lives and communities, a person who aims to make a difference. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in a by-youth for-youth educational movement that empowers young people to take their futures into their own hands.
Responsibilities:
- Steering the strategic direction of the district and enabling growth
- Budget development and financial management
- Manage stakeholder relationships, including funders, sponsors and the community
- Fundraising
- Producing narrative and financial reports
- Site visits to branches
- Supervise branch staff to ensure that the required outcomes are achieved
- Provide support & oversight to branch coordinators
- Represent and liaise with branch coordinators for Natcom
- Fulfill related HR functions for branches
- Ensure quality delivery of programmes and implementation of IY policies and processes at branches
Requirements
We are looking for graduate with work experience and a drivers licence. An individual with excellent communications skills, both written and verbal, and advanced MS Office knowledge, will feel at home in this position. A background in project management or the NGO sector will be considered but is not essential. If you are driven, reactive, flexible and able to work with others to help them reach their potential, then this could be the position for you.
Email resume to: zamo@ikamvayouth.org .
Closing date 01 February.
IkamvaYouth seeks to appoint a Branch Coordinator based in Cape Town. S/he will be based in a township location, and must be a social entrepreneur who is passionate about the power of education to transform lives and communities, and wants to make a difference. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in a by-youth for-youth educational movement that empowers young people to take their futures into their own hands.
Responsibilities:
- Work closely with the Directors of other branches in a coordinated and
- collaborative way to ensure alignment of policies and processes, and programme delivery;
- Recruit, coordinate and support volunteer tutors and mentors;
- Community liason; with the schools, community centres, CBOs and NGOs;
- Fundraise to build and sustain the branch (meeting with funders, writing proposals
- and reports, reporting, Monitoring & Evaluation);
- Manage an office and ensure accurate and up-to date data collection and
- administration for monitoring and evaluation;
- Budgeting, financial management and reporting;
- Coordinate the organisation’s communications (social media, website, group e-mail
- discussion lists, newsletters, etc.) together with other ikamvanites;
- Lead a team of volunteers to implement the supplementary tutoring,
- career guidance and mentoring and holiday programmes.
Requirements:
- Organised and efficient; impeccable time management skills, data collection and reporting must be accurate and timely;
- Must have a passion for working with young people and a pro-active energy;
- Must be able to work alone and take initiative;
- Must be adept at using computers (Excel, word, social media and internet, power-point )and able to work virtually (many discussions, meetings and document development occur collaboratively online);
- A “Can do” attitude and belief is very important
To apply please send a cover letter and CV to zoe@ikamvayouth.org
IkamvaYouth Brackground
IkamvaYouth is a township-based non-profit organisation, established in 2003 and formally registered in 2004, with branches in three provinces, operating from Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Masiphumelele in the Western Cape, Ivory Park in Gauteng, and Cato Crest in KwaZulu-Natal. While learners enrol at IkamvaYouth when they are in grades 8, 9, 10 and 11, the programme’s success is ultimately determined by the number of grade 12 learners who access tertiary institutions and/or employment-based learning opportunities when they matriculate.
December 16th. It’s a public holiday in South Africa – Day of Reconciliation. It’s also holiday time, and the streets of Makhaza are filled with people making ready for their Christmas festivities or their annual pilgrimage to the Eastern Cape. The small children are playing in the streets, the older kids are heading to the beaches, but seven of Makhaza’s inhabitants get up this morning and go to the office.
These seven remarkable individuals (pictured below) are part of a very exciting project called Khan Academy. With a library of over 2,700 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 253 practice exercises, Khan Academy is on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace (www.khanacademy.org).
Project X Team – Top Left: Unathi Smile, Mandisi Gladile, Patrick Zangwa, Andrew Einhorn, Ayanda Gladile. Bottom Left: Athi, Ayanda S, Yanga Zukelwa
This team, however, has a more specific goal: To translate the Khan Academy videos into Xhosa. At present, the videos are being subtitled into 47 different languages around the world in a Wikipedia-style open collaboration. Of these 47, 16 are in the process of being dubbed. The reason? Khan Academy is not truly open to the world until it has been translated into the languages that make it accessible to the world.
When scouting about for a name for the translation project, we discovered that Xhosa is the only official language on the globe that begins with an ‘X’. It followed naturally that we name the operation “Project X”. This is the name that has stuck, and Project X is now well and truly under way.
It is a momentous task, but our translators have so far shown themselves to be up to the challenge. In the space of just two weeks, they have fully translated and edited the first 40 videos, which address topics in arithmetic. This equates to roughly 8000 lines of Xhosa, or 64,000 words. The videos are translated by individuals and then edited as a group to gain maximum simplicity and clarity in the translation. The goal for December is to complete the Arithmetic and Pre-Algebra playlists – two of the three core sets of videos in the Khan Academy math library. So far the team is well on track.
Project X is not only about bringing Khan Academy to the seven million Xhosa speakers in South Africa. It is also about leading the way for other African countries and language groups to follow suit. At present, Xhosa is one of only two African languages into which the videos are being translated – the other being Swahili. Ironically, while of all the continents Africa has perhaps the greatest need for learning tools like this, it is also the continent that has the lowest Khan Academy penetration. Project X is one way we are trying to rectify this imbalance.
If you are interested in getting involved with Project X, or setting up a parallel project for another language group, please contact Andrew by email on andreweinhorn@gmail.com.
Translation in Progress: Khan Academy’s online translation tool (and coffee!)
I am from Switzerland, studying Social Work back home and for my studies I have to complete two internships. The first I’ve done in Switzerland and the second one I decided to go abroad. I wanted to live somewhere for a couple of months, experience another culture, experience how Social Work works in other countries. Through people I met during previous travels, I heard about IkamvaYouth. Its now been 3 months that I have been interning here and I am enjoying my stay!
The experience is different from what I expected, but not in a bad way at all. Just different. First of all, it’s great to work in this environment. There is a big gap between my culture and the culture here in the Townships. But for me it works well. I have to accept the world turns in a different way here.
In the beginning when I arrived I was busy doing some admin stuff. There was a lot to catch up on and I played the role of “assistant Administrator” since this was the need for the Branch. I made sure I support fully and assist where needed.
Initially my idea was to do some life skills with the kids. So to start this I prepared a workshop for exam preparation. Because the (final) exams were just in front of the door. So on a Saturday we had 3 hours time to work with the kids for this purpose. We (the tutors and me) tried to implement time tables so they can plan their days, especially their study time. As we also taught them skills and what is important for studying. In the end we did some exercises to find out which type of learner they are. Doing this workshop was a really interesting experience for me planning a “workshop” from the idea to the accomplishment. I got feedbacks from some learners and tutors and I think, it was a successful day.
When I came here I didn’t know that I will tutor as well. So I’m struggling a little bit haven’t practiced many of the subjects for a while. But, if there is something to help in more familiar subjects, I absolutely enjoy it. So it’s half time for me now and I’m glad about the decision to come here and enjoy IkamvaYouth and looking forward to the next three months!
The fifteen people who’re ensuring that hundreds of South African youth pull themselves and others out of poverty through education finally got to work together in person. For an entire week!
Being an IY natcom member isn’t easy. It’s a huge amount of responsibility, with high expectations and the pressure to make every cent stretch further than most people would think possible. One of the ways in which we run a low-cost, high-impact model with national reach is by leveraging technology, and our national team works from townships and cities across the country, connecting via Skype, email, gchat, google docs and the ikamvanitezone. Connectivity challenges at many branches make our online meetings difficult, and we often find ourselves trying to have big conversations and make important decisions with distracting background noise, calls dropping, and participants either unable to hear or be heard.
So the 18th September marked the day that many natcom members got to meet their colleagues in person for the first time. And eish but did we maximise that face-to-face time all week!
Mignon Lotz-Keyser from Peer Power generously volunteered her time, skills and expertise to facilitate our conversations, from vision & values right through to the action-item-to-do list for ensuring that this vision is realised. Key strategic partners Capitec, the Learning Trust and iKapaData joined us at points during the week, and our chairperson Leigh Meinert took leave from her day job as MD of TSiBA to provide valuable input over two days. Dennis Clark, our accountant, joined for the Thursday evening braai and Friday Finance Day, where we spoke about improving our financial tracking and reporting processes and presented the first round of proposed branch budgets for 2012.
We’d parked many big decisions for the week which meant long conversation, dialogue and debate which often stretched late into the evening. The chunky issues we grappled with were themes within this overarching one: “How do we grow, expand our reach, improve our professionalism and operate sustainably without negatively impacting our organisational culture and losing our soul?” We realised that our organisation is at another growth phase, whereby the need for more structures and procedures has presented itself to a group of social entrepreneurs who value democratic decision making, independence and autonomy, and hold views as strong as their performance is high.
Thankfully this small group of people who’re changing the world are smart, committed, and work wonderfully well together. The culmination of beautifully diverse yet unifying views and ideas, expressed in the inspirational setting of Goedgedacht farm, resulted in a strong, thoughtful plan for our next steps and leaps forward.
Read the full report, or simply get an overview of what it’s all building towards from our co-created vision for the next five years:
Our culture of responsibility is creating a ripple effect of thriving individuals and communities. Our intergenerational ikamvanites provide access to quality education in inspirational spaces everywhere. We are an integrated network driving change by paying it forward.
From Left to Right, Back row: Dennis Clark (Accountant), Nombuyiselo Dziba (Nyanga coordinator), Modjadji Selowe (Ivory Park assistant), Liesel Bakker (Makhaza coordinator), Zoe Mann (Natcom project manager & Masi assistant), Phillip Mcelu (Makhaza Supplementary Tutoring Head, MathsYesWeCan project manager and fieldworker for IkamvaYouth Evaluation), Mignon Lotz-Keyser (Facilitator), Joy Olivier (Director)
From Left to Right, Front row: Andrew Barrett’s shadow (Gauteng coordinator), Sbonelo Cele (Cato Manor assistant), Nico Commeignes (Masi coordinator), Asanda Nanise (Nyanga assistant), Joe Manciya (Ivory Park coordinator), Thobile Mthembu (Cato Manor coordinator), Zukile Keswa (Makhaza coordinator) and Zamo Shongwe (National coordinator)
Lloyd Lungu