Youth Revamp Project.

In year 2023 as a group of 10 individuals from Alfred Nzo region under Flagstaff in a small rural location called Mfundisweni, we sat down to reflect on different challenges that we experienced as the youth while growing up in that community. We did not only look at the present nor recent times, but we also took a memorable tour reflecting at our times as young pupils at our respective primaries all around the region, the challenges we faced during both our primary school days and at the high school level.

The reflection assisted us to take a moment to compare our childhood circumstances at our respective primaries to the challenges that are still there to the pupils of today in our absentia and we subsequently began to challenge ourselves to address the question of “what is it that can be done with all the identified challenges”.

We took another challenge to begin with Mfundisweni Senior Secondary School, situated at Mfundisweni village under Ntabankulu Local Municipality right in the province of Eastern Cape to zoom in closely to see their unique needs and challenges. It was through our continuous communication with the principal of the school and the entire team that we reached to a decision of hosting our very first career exhibition for the school in an attempt to solve some of the major problems that the school assisted us to identify.

It was through our continuous communication with the principal of the school and the entire team that we reached to a decision of hosting our very first career exhibition for the school in an attempt to solve some of the major problems that the school assisted us to identify.

The purpose of a career exhibition was to motivate the high school students, to help them network with professionals from various institutions, to guide their career choices and to expose them to different careers available across the country, but we made ours a bit extra, it did not only guide the pupils in choosing their careers but also dealt with personal problems that the school children had through the use of the social worker we had brought.

Further, we had requested the school to identify needy children so we could assist where we could with whatever was necessary. We managed to collect shoes and stationery for the needy that we also awarded on the career day.

With the team Having grown up in the rural with majority of the population living beyond poverty marginal line and having women in our team who started as young girls who came in to adulthood unexpectedly from the community, we also saw the need to fundraise sanitary towels for young girls of the school which we also gave to girls from different grades in the school on our career exhibition day.

On the day, we created a quiz for all the pupils that attended the career exhibition, we had invited the Junior Secondary school (grade 8 and grade 9) to also join the high school. This created a competitive environment in which we were giving away some of the stationery to everyone who participated and answered the questions correctly.

The above-mentioned institutions had also brought their packages for the school which were also given on the career day.

The questions were based on the presentations that were made by various speakers from various institutions on the day.
Our career exhibition was blessed by the presence numerous institutions, to name a few:

• The Walter Sisulu University
• Ingwe FET College
• Ikhala FET College
• South African Police Services
• Social Development
• Department of Agriculture and Others.

The above-mentioned institutions had also brought their packages for the school which were also given on the career day. We are proud to say they also made a huge contribution in making our dream come true.

It is with great pride that we mention that, At the beginning of this year 2024, we received a communique from the school principal applauding us for the great job that we did as there was a great improvement from 63.9% to 80% at Mfundisweni Senior Secondary School which has not been seen for more than 4 years as the school has been for the past 4 years obtaining less than 70%. We also beam with pride when we must mention a great increase in mathematics results, an increase from 56% to 92%.

It is quite evident that, our initiative was a huge success and has indeed made a huge impact in the school entirely.

We piloted our idea, and became successful, much so that this year intending to enlarge our territory. The idea is to touch and impact more lives, for if we do then we would at the end have won the battle of poverty in our region.