By Harrison Dax Nash | Charity Director / Project Leader
It has been a time of much unrest in South Africa during the #FeesMustFall protest movement with many Universities having been unable to function amidst the heated and violent protest action which has still been on-going.
It is sad to see this when actually you can see that there are increasingly more young people going into further education with Stats SA highlighting how student enrolment in higher education actually grew by 32.5% from 2006 to 2015. This is reflective of many youngsters having a vision of a brighter future for themselves.
And this is the reality that we are seeing through our project at this stage. We recently had two girls attend a school “farewell” (prom) event and we were just so thankful that we could arrange for them to be sponsored with the dress, make-up, accessories and of course luxury transport to the venue! This was also covered in the local press!
But what of course is wonderful to see is that still the school work and academic achievement comes first in their mind. The one girl at the farewell also achieved in the TOP 5 academic achievers of the year! We are also excited that she can continue on with us at our youth centre next year going to train further in hospitality and catering. It is amazing to see such children from where they’ve come to where they are now but of course we are always focusing so much more on where they are going to…!
And that message of shooting for the moon cannot be more apt for another young man who, despite facing insurmountable challenges when first coming into our care, has now gone on to achieve incredibly well through being selected as a school prefect, attending a leadership camp, achieving diplomas in his prize-giving AND also playing for the school in first team Rugby which allowed him to also play at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium! A stadium fit for international games and even the world cup! Hows that for success!
Of course we recognize the importance of having a full extra-curricular program as we develop these children and young lives! This is also on the step to achieving our aim of maximizing potential. We also had the prize-giving of the Sea Cadets last month which was also a wonderful moment! At this stage we are also wanting to promote healthy lifestyles further especially for our girls and young women where we have identified a huge need for a multi-purpose cement court on the grounds of the centre where the girls can also practice netball. We have set up a micro-project for supporters of this cause knowing that these sport opportunities also allow girls to become empowered by learning to trust each other and also having a platform to express themselves and learn that they have the right to make choices that are good for themselves. This page is especially for attracting support of those who may be interested in helping a sports project on a larger scale.
However our priority must be education – even as I write this we have very recently had 5 new children admitted at our youth centre all between the age of 6-10. We get children not attending school; not even with shoes; even in some cases removed from home circumstances by police assistance. As we come to November now we will this month be purchasing ALL the school needs for 32 children going into next year (as the school years runs from January in South Africa) which is always a big expense in itself alone! If you can just imagine what this entails. All these new children must also receive psychometric evaluations and just this weekend we will be registering a further two learners to be enrolled in a vocational high school where they have been accepted for next year. But of course it takes funding to make sure these needs can all be met!
It is important to still realize that this project and the funding from Global Giving is actually vital to allowing these children access to school and seeing these success stories that we have further down the line. But we are reliant on that support and hope you, as a supporter reading this report, can continue to help if you can, share and spread the word…let’s make more dreams become a reality!
Thanks so much for the support!!!
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