Never Stop Learning
Blink and it seems like we are a quarter of the way through the school year! The good news is, there is no time limit on learning and here at KHULA Education we believe education is a lifelong pursuit. In this month's wrap up we are celebrating some occasions where we have been teaching the teachers and giving staff the opportunity to develop their skills.
With the first term of our school year coming to a close, we welcomed English and Zulu teaching staff in schools to participate in a Storytelling workshop - and we had some surprise facilitators that caused a big stir! (More below)
We also heard that two of our incredible management team, Nothile and Slindo who play such a crucial role in the day-to-day running of KHULA, have been offered places in the 2022 DGMT Fellowship for Organisational Innovation! We can't wait to hear what they learn and are excited to sit down with other dynamic organisations working across South Africa.
Our two peer mentors, Thuli and Mdu, attended a leadership course in Cape Town and, closer to home, our new graduate teaching fellows (three of whom are past Madrinha scholars from our programmes) have begun to teach their own lessons and set tests for students. It's certainly all go, but we wouldn't have it any other way!
Building Confidence with the Help of Famous Faces!
This month, we had some celebrity visitors to KHULA Education, Pallance Dladla, Ayanda Sithebe, and Amanda Lane. This incredible team of an actor, creative space creator, and writer/director are helping KHULA work on our Storytelling project which brings creativity into the classroom and helps students gain confidence and presentation skills.
We kicked off with a teachers workshop last week. The team welcomed English, isiZulu and Life Orientation subject teachers and coached them through the steps of creating a praise poem.
We have seen students and graduates struggle in an interview environment, where local customs that encourage deference to elders and more soft spoken manners can be at odds with what an employer or educator is looking for. The project aims to help students identify their own strengths and think about how they present and communicate in different contexts. For teachers the goal is to develop dynamic teaching techniques and tools to help students with presentation skills.
Next term, we will be bringing students into the fold. Having seen the enthusiasm and energy in our teachers workshop - we can't wait to see the reaction and performances of students!
Developing Young Leaders
Two of our more established Madrinha Scholars on KHULA's staff, Mdu who works as an IT administrator for our schools and Thuli who helps with both KHULA and the Madrinha Trust's finances, also had an opportunity to grow this month.
They both play a key role as mentors to current students, helping them navigate their ambitions and challenges. This peer support has proved invaluable, and we were excited to be able to send them to a Leadership Development conference to help them develop their coaching style.
After a nearly 24 hour bus journey across three provinces, they arrived in Cape Town. The workshop gave them an opportunity to meet others involved in community work from Germany, Uganda and South Africa - giving them a chance to see global perspectives and talk to like minded young leaders. The agenda saw everyone participate in a game to understand their personality profile - protectors/caregivers/adventurers/dreamers- and think about the strengths and weaknesses that sit within that. Both Mdu and Thuli have come away with a better understanding of themselves, and how they can use this knowledge to help the students they work with.
