Uncategorized | IkamvaYouth

IkamvaYouth win STARS Impact Award for Education

As if to beautiful summarise a wonderful year of celebration, the STARS Foundation has announced the winners of their annual STARS Impact Awards for 2013. IkamvaYouth has won in the category of Education in Africa-Middle East and celebrates along with many other deserving winners.

Director, Joy Olivier and Gauteng District Coordinator, Zamo Shongwe are currently in London to and will receive the award at Kensington Palace on Saturday, 14th December 2013.

The STARS Foundation exist to provide innovative support to meaningful and effective organisations who serve children in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. We are happy to hear of their faith in IkamvaYouth and its ability to improve education for all.

Celebrating 10 Years of IkamvaYouth

As we bid farewell to the year which marks a decade of progressive services at IkamvaYouth, we would like to share snippets from our wonderful ten year celebration party with you.

The event was held on 3 October 2013 at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, Western Cape and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Keynote speaker, Minister Trevor Manuel, who described the past ten years as a decade of fighting for change shared his thoughts with much delight – you can now access a behind the scenes interview to hear what he had to say about IkamvaYouth.

Learn more about our findings, achievements and plans to scale up in future by viewing the link: IkamvaYouth E-Newsletter November 2013

KZN Winter School: Week 2

Entering the second week of Winter School 2013 was exciting for all KZN Ikamvanites, we had gotten the hang of things. The first week had been exciting, challenging and a lot of fun. Learners were looking forward with anticipation to what was in store for them for week two.

Tutoring continued as usual, in the mornings with activities and talks planned for the afternoon sessions. In this the second week, the Love Life Mpintshis continued to give valuable life lessons to learners, while DSW came in to speak about waste management and gave away prizes to those learners who participated actively in the waste management talk. Media, Image and Expression workshops were held where we saw learners learning to express themselves in ways they knew how, ranging from poetry to acting, singing and dressing up in a way that represented their personalities.

The last group of learners did the amazing race, this was the best group by far. They complained, they cried, they argued but they kept going at it. This race taught many of life’s lessons which I don’t think the learners noticed at the time but there were lessons to be learnt like working as a team, persevering and accountability just to mention a few.

The matrics were fortunate to be afforded a chance to watch the movies of the set books they are reading in English. We had Shakespeare’s Othello, Nothing But The Truth and Animal Farm playing for the learners. This was aimed at assisting them to get a better understanding of the books through a visual medium. The English lecturers were also there to assist them with any questions they may have had. For those who don’t do any of the above mentioned books we entertained them with a movie “My Name is Khan”. The lessons in this movie ranged from perseverance to going after what you believe in to kindness being rewarded and the truth being able to set you free. Again the matrics were taken through a financial literacy workshop by Capitec. This was seen as a very important tool for them as they would not only be equipped academically for the “big bad world” but they would also have financial health knowledge. Grade 11 learners had the opportunity to write a Maths Test also supplied by Capitec to gauge their levels of literacy in Maths.

We were also graced by the visit of our National Coordinator, Zamo Shongwe, who came in for two days in the second week. She really just reminded us of why we were there as staff and volunteers and encouraged us to continue pressing on. She also firmly reminded us that we should carry ourselves in a way that is admirable and that the learners can take a pattern from with regards to behavior, the way we speak to each other and to learners, dress code (no caps indoors) and drawing the line between learner and adult.

When we came to the end of week 2, we were tired and drained but content, our goal had been achieved. There were no major setbacks and we all took something away from this experience.