School does us proud

YET another remarkable achievement by a disadvantaged Western Cape school: the saying that “today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders” was given a boost again when the Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pamela Tshwete, presented a media classroom to the Injongo Primary School in Khayelitsha on Friday.

Last year, Injongo Primary put the Western Cape on the map when the school scooped the first prize in the Baswa Le Meetse (Youth in Water) national competition.

The BLM initiative is aimed at Grade 6 pupils.

In this competition, the youngsters can compete in five categories, namely drama, poster, music, praise poetry and poetry.

Injongo Primary pupils were announced as the overall winners in the music category. By winning, the school is the proud winner of a media classroom sponsored by the MTN Foundation.

The MTN media classroom consists of 21 computers connected to the internet and preloaded with scientific programmes.

Accepting the prize, Injongo Primary principal Sithembele Mhletywa said: “Despite the fact that the school is facing challenges of resources (it) beat the odds and won this prestigious competition.”

It was not the first time that a Western Cape school has won the BLM competition.

Previous winners are Amstelhof Primary School from Paarl and Hibernia Primary School from George.

Given the fact that South Africa is a water-scarce country, the department has made a call for a partnership with communities to participate actively in water resource management – and hence the implementation of various public programmes aimed at educating the young people and communities about integrated water resource management.

Through the Vision Programme, we want to instil values of natural resource management and also to promote careers in the water sector in order to address the scarce skills challenge.

School pupils are the best educators and they are able to change the mindset of their families and entire community. “Water is life, sanitation is dignity.”