There’s nothing – and I mean nothing - more uplifting and vindicating than hearing from our Net Buddy alums as they stride ahead with their lives after school. Katlego (2014-18) took the time to send a beautiful message to let us know how valuable her weekly Video Conferences (VCs) were in preparing her for university life. She studied for a Bachelor of Social Science at North Western University and says that, while she knew what to expect – thanks to her Video Mentors - she watched her peers grapple with social anxiety, peer pressure, fear of failure, and lack of career direction. Forewarned is forearmed!
I just wanted to let you know how the program has been useful in my life. I got a match with my second mentor, Elinor, in 2016 and she’s been an amazing, supporting structure in my life ever since! Even to this day we are still in contact. She's so helpful, supportive, and caring. She's so amazing, I don't wanna lie!
If it wasn't for you guys I wouldn't have met this wonderful soul. Thanks once again, I am so blessed to have had the opportunity.
Katlego is now completing a post-graduate Honours Degree in Demography & Population Studies at the prestigious University of Witwatersrand. You can hear even more of her story at the link here and below to the recording from our recent Infinite FAMILY MEETING.
If you missed the opportunity to join one of our update sessions, why not grab yourself a coffee, find a comfy chair, and catch up on what’s been happening at Infinite Family and what we’ve got in store. You’ll get to meet some of our key people and find out what we’ll be doing – with your help – to impact the lives of more teens, so no one gets left behind.
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For South African teens, there’s nothing new about needing to dig deep to stay motivated and focused at school, which is why Infinite Family has always emphasized helping them build resilience. Yet, in the 17 years since our program began, they’ve never needed to dig deeper … and we’ve never been more proud of them!
In their video conversations (VCs), our Net Buddies have likely added the word ‘loadshedding’ to their Video Mentors’ vocabulary. This is the term used to describe the rolling power cuts - up to 12 hours a day - that have become a part of their daily life. Their ability to cope with all the extra challenges it poses is impressive. We can honestly say that it’s been an inspiring lesson for us to watch our teens (who are already overloaded with the kind of toxic stress that would sink most adults) find the mental strength to push through. Among the reasons for it?
The Video Mentors you make sure are there every week to motivate them!
It has always been our guiding belief that having a stable, committed relationship with a supportive adult is key to helping children to overcome adversity and learn to manage stress. And it is why Video Mentors are central to the Infinite Family program, as this beautiful message from Jagi in India illustrates:
"I am very excited to share with you the journey of Nthabi. More than a year ago she came as a Net Buddy to me. She was very depressed, lives in a shelter and seems to have no family. I worked with her for quite a while, giving her hope and guiding her to be positive.
Yesterday she turned a corner and is doing well at school in her 12th Grade. She is getting good grades and will start training in September to be an air hostess. She is a very smart girl and I am willing to help her achieve this if she needs any financial assistance. I felt so happy yesterday. She was full of life and cheerful."
YOU allow young people to share their life experiences in a safe space and engage in weekly conversations, like Ntabi’s with Jagi, which influences them to move beyond their natural feelings of helplessness and work through solutions for themselves. Your gift of the relationships between Video Mentors’ and their Net Buddies has always been a gift, but in these dark and difficult times, it’s more appreciated than ever!
Note: Photos and quotes are all real Infinite Family Net Buddies. For their safety, we change the names and images to protect the identities of minor-aged teens.
Net Buddies and YOU, our worldwide Infinite Family! Thanks to your generous December gifts, the LaunchPads were clean, connected, and ready for their return. Click here to see their first day and special message for our global Infinite Family.
Our Infinite Family created the first access to computers and the internet for teens growing up in South Africa’s Alexandra Township in 2007. Our LaunchPads were the only place students in the Realogile area could drop in, log on and learn in a safe environment -- and all for free! They still are!
We are ever grateful to you for your generous gifts in December and through all of last year. Keeping the LaunchPads clean, connected and ready to support independent and group learning is most intense at the end of the year when our main focus is supporting students during their exams. But that’s not the only time there’s a lot to keep up: the laptops need constant updates and trouble-shooting to continue working in the township’s “extreme” environment; daily attention is required to keep the backup batteries charged and ready to take over at any moment; and then there’s the ever-present African dust to keep at bay without running water to help.
It would be easy for Infinite Family’s sites to reflect waning attention in their appearance and standards amid the endless issues that arise. We fight letting this happen for so many reasons, but especially because it would send the message to African teens that our attention and investment in their futures might also be waning, that perhaps they aren’t important enough to keep our focus, that our care and concern too will soon shift to the next immediate crisis, as it has by so many others. These are messages our teens have received all of their lives from broken promises about decent sanitation and police protection to woefully under-resourced schools.
This is why your participation, as donors, in our Infinite Family is as critical as their relationships with their Video Mentors: Your ongoing decisions to continue supporting their extra-curricular effort to build better lives convinces them they have what it takes to succeed. Your investment to create a learning space like nowhere else around is the visible, tangible, external proof their hard work is truly important.
Thank you for again setting our Net Buddies' standards and expectations high as they start another school year strong.
Gratefully yours,
Amy
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Have you ever tried watching a movie in a foreign language? Thank goodness for subtitles.
Now, have you ever tried learning lessons in a foreign language without subtitles? This takes a LOT of concentration! Last week we saw what this looked like when our Net Buddy was watching a video about the solar system for his Natural Science project. Tough technical terms, complicated physics concepts, and inter-galactic perspectives, all fast and all in English. Through sheer determination he got it. We applaud his focus and effort!
Thank YOU to our incredible Infinite Family for bringing Infinite Family LaunchPads and an infinite range of worldwide learning resources into Alexandra, Khayelitsha, and Soweto so this hard-won learning can happen hundreds of times on countless topics each week.
Because of you, computers and internet access have been installed in marginalized communities in South Africa since 2006. They were the only computers and internet available to teens in these areas at that time...and they still are. Because of you, African teens are discovering the wonders and exploring the mysteries of their neighboring 53 African countries, their global community, and even celestial bodies light years away.
The very fact that it is now second nature to our Net Buddies to take the initiative to log on and learn is a small miracle that is easily lost in their hardscrabble days; but not to us. We thank you for their access today and their future success in school, work, and life.
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How do we know how well our alumni are doing, long after they finish high school? They come back and tell us, just like Sakhi did recently. Sakhi and his older brother, Zweli, were two of our very first Net Buddies in Alexandra Township. Sakhi was just 14 in 2007 when he joined Infinite Family and remembers meeting with his Video Mentor, Susan, in the crowded administrative office shared generously by our NGO partner for four long years before our first LaunchPad was built at the site. Just as he has grown, gaining skills and job experience along the way, you have kept Infinite Family strong, making it possible for him to return and motivate Net Buddies today.
Sakhi and Zweli’s mother was a domestic worker who never had the opportunity to attend college or work at an international company. Her boys have both created opportunities for themselves to achieve these goals and many others. Both brothers are building careers in the international shipping industry. Sakhi started at UPS and worked himself through several promotions before continuing his rise at Fed Ex. Zweli recently finished a university degree, while working at the same time. Today, both brothers live in the suburbs outside of Alexandra in homes they built for themselves. Furthermore, as their jobs and exposure to new experiences grow, they are able to take advantage of all that Johannesburg has to offer behind the wheel of their own cars, one of the surest signs of success for young African professionals.
Despite his many achievements, Sakhi still seems a bit surprised by it all. He admits that when he first met Susan he didn’t take school seriously – basketball was his passion and he was good at it. Homework came last, after hoops and chores. Many nights, he never quite got that far. That is, until Susan encouraged him to focus on his future and develop a “Plan B” in case he was injured or basketball didn’t work out the way he wanted. He credits Susan with motivating him to prioritize books before sports and to apply himself while he still had time to improve his grades. Without question, Susan’s influence had a permanent and sustainable impact. We are grateful to her and all of our Video Mentors for all they invest in our Net Buddies, and we are always grateful to YOU, our Infinite Family, for building and strengthening such a special place for them to work together.
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