Two years ago, I started a travel scholarship worth £625 p.a. for a Year 12 or 13 student at Colchester RGS, my old secondary school.
Chloe won last year's competition and here's her latest newsletter:
I apologise for the length of this newsletter as well as the length of time it has taken to get to you!
Throughout the whole Project Trust training and selection process I was repeatedly told how quick our year overseas would pass and until I got here I didn’t realise how fast they meant. I have just hit the 4 months milestone but it feels like I have only just got here and been here for so long at the same time.
My given project was with Axium Education in a rural village called Zithulele that is situated in the Transkei in the Eastern Cape. The area here is so picturesque with rolling green hills, brightly coloured rondavels (circular huts) dotted along the hillside and an amazing sea view. Axium Education is a newly formed NGO which has the aim of improving the standard of education in the Eastern Cape, the province with the most poorly performing education system in the country, and in particular the Transkei, one of the former Homelands. This underperformance is a clear example of the division within the country and is largely due to historical events. The school system in South Africa means that a child needs to achieve a ‘pass score’ of 30% in order to progress to the next grade. Due to how low this bench mark is, some children scrape through the grades with minimal knowledge. Many do not progress to Secondary Senior School and even fewer pass Matric (their final year – grade 12). Especially in this area, financial circumstances draw young people to work, in particular many leave education to go and work in the mines.
Axium runs many programmes which cater for a variety of ages, ranging from young children learning English to those who narrowly missed out on university who are reapplying the following year. My partner Sophie and I are responsible for the Maths half of the Masakhane program which is for Grade 6 – 9 students from two local schools, Lubanzi J.S.S and SeaView J.S.S. However we are currently in the process of extending the programme to another school, Mhlahlane J.S.S. The Masakhane Maths Team is made up of the two of us, alongside our translator, Mashiya, and three Grade 11 Helpers, Zukile, Kafile and Kangelani. The program runs for 2 hours after school each day and is intended to improve the standard of Maths and English of the learners who attend. The learners are given the option to opt in or out of the programme and then are selected by their respective schools based on their attendance and ability. Currently Masakhane involves around 90 learners who are split into 3 levels and they move up levels as their knowledge, skill and ability improves. The maths side of Masakhane is taught using the Khan Academy programme on 30 netbooks which were donated to Axium. Our responsibility is to structure what modules the students complete on the programme, to facilitate their learning as well as occasional traditional ‘at the board’ teaching for the harder topics.
Coming to rural Africa, I really was not expecting to be encountering the amount of technology I do on a daily basis. But the use of the computers means that the kids get the chance to learn ICT skills which are almost essential to a successful career, giving them a greater chance of employment when they finish school. It also means that I am learning a lot about computers! Despite the benefits of 
using such a technology based method of teaching – the power supply does not always co-operate with our plans! South Africa is currently experiencing load shedding where all power supplies to the area are cut for extended periods of time. Unpredictable power supply, amongst other things, is part of life in the Transkei and my ability to think on my feet, organise activities and teach games has definitely improved! Zithulele Hospital, located around 2 minutes’ walk from the community centre where we teach, has suffered with the power outages and was even completely powerless on one occasion when the back-up generator failed.
The community here is the most welcoming I have ever experienced and I have quickly picked up simple greetings in Xhosa. My attempts to learn Xhosa have proved very amusing to the kids I teach and they found it quite frustrating that I was not fluent within the first few weeks but I have found it useful to get the kids to teach me a word a day so my knowledge is slowly building. The language includes 3 main clicks which definitely took a while to get to grips with but I’m slowly making progress. Locals really appreciate any attempts you make to speak in Xhosa, which is shown when even the sternest looking Mama smiles as soon as you say “Molo” (Hello in Xhosa).
At the end of every term Axium runs a ‘Bootcamp’ which is a week of activities which Sophie and I are in charge of organising. The idea is that maths is taught in a more fun and interactive way and to keep the students learning throughout the breaks in school. Stealing ideas from my own teachers we organised various things including treasure hunts, bingo and loom band by numbers which had varying success but we are definitely learning from our mistakes and every Bootcamp is an improvement on the last! This week also involves arranging food for 70 children which proved quite a big challenge after only a month here. The kids are fed an amagqinya, which is a deep fried ball of dough, with a slice of poloney. Not the sort of food that meets the healthy eating criteria of school lunches in the UK! But the kids absolutely love them and it’s what is easily available to us. At the end of the week we have a prize giving session where we give out awards we have created for various things 
including ‘Most Hardworking’ and ‘Most Improved’ as well as certificates for how many modules they have completed on Khan Academy. Since I have arrived we have implemented a new reward system where students are given a sticker for engaging in an English conversation with one of the staff members. This intention of this system was to encourage English speaking as the exams that they write are written in English even though it is a second language to them. Their progress with this chart is also rewarded during the prize giving. The kids really responded to it and there is big competition for stickers during Masakhane! At our most recent Bootcamp, we trialled inviting all of the learner’s parents to come and watch. This proved very successful as we had about 30 parents turn up, and the kids arranged short drama performances which were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone!
In an attempt to improve the relations between Axium and the local community, in particular the student’s parents, as a Masakhane team we undertook the challenge of visiting the homes of all of our students. When we discussed the idea with the schools, they laughed and said “If you can do it – it’s a good idea”. But with careful planning, including printing a map and getting the kids to mark on it where they live (not a simple case of finding out addresses and Google mapping the directions here) we managed to visit the homes of 90 learners. There were a few incidents of being chased by dogs, getting very sunburnt and very lost but all of the effort was worth it as it was our first real opportunity to visit the actual local community and to be welcomed into their homes and hear their view on Axium’s work was a privilege.
Another thing Axium does is inform students of bursaries that they are eligible for and aids their application. This year several of our students were provisionally awarded the ‘African Scholars Bursary’ which awards R800 (approximately £45) to a student from a low/no income family who achieves above 50% in all of their subjects at school. This money is a once off sum that is to go towards stationary and uniform for school. In order to celebrate this achievement, Sophie and I were given the enjoyable task of organizing a small party for all of kids in order to encourage their fellow students to aspire to achieve the 50% required to be eligible for the bursary. We played several typical party games including pass the parcel, musical chairs and there was of course some dancing with the kids’ moves putting ours to shame.
While living here, I have also had to opportunity to shadow within the hospital, more specifically I spent the afternoon in the maternity ward where I was able to watch a caesarean. On another occasion I shadowed an occupational therapist and physiotherapist enabling me to witness rural medicine in action and also learn a lot about various conditions and their treatment. This experience in a medical environment will hopefully benefit me with my future study of Psychology. A teacher training week also provided me the opportunity to spend two mornings working in the local preschool, Khanyisa, which I really enjoyed as it gave me the chance to really interact with the younger children and to improve my Xhosa during their story time! In the New Year I am hoping to spend one morning a week working with another local NGO called Rural Ability who specialise in disability awareness in the community. Becoming involved in this will hopefully allow me to partake in more home visits which I really enjoy.
The New Year in Zithulele means a lot of changes as a large group of new medical professionals and volunteers arrive and we are planning changes in the structure of the Masakhane programme as we attempt to align the higher levels more to the educational curriculum and restructure the grouping as well as a whole new grade of students joining the programme. My time in South Africa so far has been incredible and I am so excited to see what challenges and enjoyment the next 8 months hold.
Thank you again for all of your support with my fundraising! If you want to find out more please do not hesitate to email me: chloebat@crgs.co.uk. I shall be writing another newsletter soon – sorry again that it took me so long to write this one!