Writer: Boikanyo Kati
Le Rona Secondary school is the only secondary school situated in Christiana, North West (the combined school is only able to admit afrikaans speaking learners). Christiana is a small town with roughly 20 000 inhabitants. Although this is a ridiculously small population, the ratio is not fair enough for it to have one secondary school.
As a former learner of the school I experienced the difficulty of learning in this school. I struggled because of the limited resources we had. Since I started with tertiary education I have decided to spare enough money to donate laboratory equipments and in mid terms, I would visit the school and volunteer my time to tutor learners, with demonstrations and experiments.
After the extra class tutorials were introduced, I received feedback from teachers that the learner’s school marks seem to improve (credit also be given to hardworking and passionate teachers). At the moment I’m still studying, so I decided to get more ways of getting extra money to buy more equipments and improve the laboratory. One of the projects that I’m now involved in is making videos showcasing the work we do. Consecutively, these videos are targeted at raising funds for the school through advertisements and other virtual marketing tools.
Why I started this project:
There’s only one laboratory at the Le Rona Secondary School (this was actually a normal teaching class and by 2009 it was turned into a laboratory) and due to no resources, the lab was inactive. Late 2011, the school bought a few equipments and then 2013 I also donated some. That was when I started to assist where I could. From Grade 10 to 12 the number of learners who took science as a subject were 289 and Grade 8+9 (NS) 350. I had to come up with ideas of how to get resources for the school kids without having to affect my school time. As a chemical Engineering student, I know and understand lab safety rules and how to conduct high school level experiments, therefore safety precautions are and will ALWAYS be followed. On the other hand, this becomes a big problem because the size of the lab can accommodate less than 40 learners and one class (due to overpopulation) consists of more than 40 learners. However, we won’t give up making a real difference and contributing to education of this country and changing lives.
Watch our video on the link provided. Feel free to share with your friends and family to help us create awareness.
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From all of us here at Education Ambassadors SA, we celebrate you Boikanyo Kati. You are exactly what this country needs. Youth with passion to see dreams turn into reality. You are brilliant and you are an inspiration to many of us. Keep up the good work!
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