Network of NGOs Ensures that Young South Africans Continue to Beat the Odds

Seven tutoring programmes achieved remarkable collective impact in the recent matric exams, achieving a 92% pass rate. 97 matric learners from organisations participating in the Community Collaboration Programme (CCP) wrote their exams last year, and 84 learners achieved either bachelor or diploma passes; ensuring their eligibility for tertiary studies.

Maobi Phakwago

Moabi Phakwago joined the Tarenteraaland after-school tutoring programme in Cullinan, Gauteng at the end of grade 11 and has been diligently coming twice a week ever since. He managed to secure himself five distinctions and has been accepted to study medicine, electrical engineering, and astrophysics at some of the country’s top universities; UJ, Wits, and UCT. He describes his results as ‘just amazing and I couldn’t have done it without the tutors.’ 

Maobi’s message to the new class of 2017 is to ‘Start early and work hard. I remember quite well that I was told this, but I didn’t listen. So really guys, start early, work with past papers, listen attentively in class, and get help from wherever you can…but don’t forget to have a little fun as well.’’ The world is now Maobi’s oyster! Wherever he ends up, he promises to continue to pay forward the help he received by tutoring younger grades to achieve similarly inspiring results. 
 

It is especially encouraging to see new collaborating partners achieving incredible success. My Career Corner (MCC), an organisation based in Mabopane, Gauteng helped 11 grade 12 learners to pass matric; six of whom achieved bachelor passes. One of the main feeder schools that MCC is working with achieved a pass rate of 58%. Boipelo, from My Career Corner, also recognised that ‘it is rare to see this level of commitment from learners, especially from the community and context in which they live. Generally, young people don’t value education and that is why I have been so impressed with this group’s level of dedication – that was number one for me. I am very proud of them.’ We need more people like Cheryl and Boipelo, who are stepping up to support learners and can now enjoy the amazing feeling that comes with seeing learners turn that support into tangible, life-changing achievement.  


My Career Corner Coordinator, Cheryl Maepa (4th from left) with her matric class of 2016


CCP’s primary funder and capacity building partner, The Learning Trust, are ‘immensely proud to be associated with the CCP initiative and the sterling outcomes produced in 2016.’ It is thanks to the funders, and to the tireless efforts of the staff, tutors, mentors, and partners, that these learners, unlike many of their peers, could access the additional support needed to succeed. 
 

Zoe Mann, Coordinator of the CCP, says that “After-school programme practitioners, youth workers, parents, peers, teachers, and ordinary people, all have the extraordinary power to expose young people to future possibility, and begin undoing the limiting beliefs that hold young people back. These organisations are not giving learners’ unrealistic dreams, but are showing their learners that it is possible because, with solid, ongoing support, and hard work it is happening in community-based tutoring programmes all over the country.”

Congratulations to the class of 2016 – your determination is inspiring! 


About
In collaboration with The Learning Trust, IkamvaYouth established the CCP in 2014. The programme provides training, support and space for peer-to-peer learning to social entrepreneurs running tutoring programmes. The seven organisations who had grade 12 learners in 2016 were; Sozo, SALT, Just Grace, Tarenteraaland, My Career Corner, Kliptown Youth Program, and Boys and Girls Club of South Africa. In 2017 IkamvaYouth is working with 12 partner organisations across Gauteng and Western Cape, listed on the website. 

IkamvaYouth is a non-profit organisation, enabling disadvantaged youth to pull themselves and each other out of poverty through education. The organisation provides free after-school tutoring, career guidance, mentoring, computer literacy training and extra-curricular engagement to learners in grades 8-12. The organisation is currently operating 16 branches in townships across five South African provinces. To find out more, go to www.ikamvayouth.org or call Zoe Mann on 074 476 7965.

The Learning Trust (TLT)  is a thriving South African non-profit organisation which supports individual, emerging organisations and education clusters over a five year period. TLT increases and improves learning opportunities for young South Africans growing up in conditions of poverty and exclusion. It does this by funding and building the capacity of outstanding grassroots education initiatives, the education clusters they develop and by championing the co-ordination of the After School sector in South Africa. TLT works alongside local partners to strengthen governance and improve quality and impact, taking young, community-based organisations that demonstrate significant potential towards self-reliance.


Lloyd Lungu

031 909 3590
lloyd@ikamvayouth.org
2525 Ngcede Grove, Umlazi AA Library, 4031

Lloyd is a self-disciplined and highly goal-driven Industrial Psychology Honours graduate. He is currently a Master's candidate completing his second year of M.Com in Industrial Psychology at the University of the Free State. Lloyd joined IkamvaYouth as a learner in 2012, after matriculating he came back and volunteered as a tutor for the duration of his undergraduate studies at UKZN. He later worked as an Intern in the Chesterville branch. His passion for youth empowerment and inclusion has grown enormously through his time and experience gained within IkamvaYouth and has inspired him to provide career guidance to young township people. He is currently working at the Umlazi Branch as a Branch Assistant.