The usually quiet Drostdy Lawns on the Rhodes University campus bubbled over with students and visitors from a local school on Wednesday afternoon last week.
The usually quiet Drostdy Lawns on the Rhodes University campus bubbled over with students and visitors from a local school on Wednesday afternoon last week.
Rhodes Journalism first-year students and Grade 9 Mary Waters High School pupils gathered to meet and greet their prospective partners for the first time in a new collaboration between the two educational institutions.
The collaborative programme, aimed at improving participants' writing skills, calls for the students and school pupils to go beyond their familiar settings and get to know one another and the different health issues that they all face. On Wednesday the partners exchanged personal stories that they had written about the overall theme of health.
Student Jessica van Tonder and her partner from Mary Waters were among the many engaging animatedly with each other. “I am enjoying the project, van Tonder said. You learn a lot about people that you may never have had the chance to meet.” Her partner echoed her sentiments, adding, “I am enjoying coming to Rhodes and meeting the students. It's a good project.”
But there are benefits to the project, organised by lecturer Rod Amner and Mary Waters English teacher Elizabeth Adesina, that transcend the original objectives. Nicola Graham, a local speech therapist and Psychology student at Rhodes, aims to use some of the material written by the students and the pupils to help in her current research on gender issues.
“The students have all signed consent forms that allow me to look at their work,” said Graham, “and I hope to really get into their world.”
