Creating hope among Grahamstown’s youth

On reading the GRA report published in last week’s Grocott’s Mail I was greatly disturbed by the fact that I seem not to have conveyed in my speech what I had hoped to convey. While my examples came from Nombulelo, I was hoping to give a sense of the difficulties facing non-fee paying schools in general, and was wanting to encouraging a deeper understanding of the practicalities of poverty in general.

At the same time I was hoping to give the sense of the importance of creating a sense of hope in our youth. Unemployment is so rife, that anything that we as community members or as businesses can do to create internships, apprenticeships or encourage skills development and entrepreneurship (as we are trying to do at Nombulelo) would have an incredibly positive influence on the psyche of school children. Lastly I really wanted to express my gratitude and that of the school community in general for the immense support we have received from the Grahamstown community, and to express my confidence in the possibility of school education coming right in all Grahamstown schools should such support, including that of the VC’s upliftment programme, continue. P.S. For the green-minded out there, rest assured that VG teachers do NOT drive their learners to Bots – they walk.

What I said was that even if the localities of our two schools were reversed, VG would be able to drive their learners because they have a bus.

Nicci Hayes, Principal Nombulelo Secondary School