By MICHELLE BANDA A young man with a passion for the natural environment was voted the best photographer at the Masazaneni Exhibition at a packed Joza Youth Hub last Friday. Chulumanco Kuhlane, a Grade 10 learner from Nombulelo High School, walked off with a R200 Bargain Books voucher for his striking set of photos. The Masazaneni exhibition (Masazaneni means ‘let’s get to know each other’ in isiXhosa) was the culmination of a three-month exchange between six Rhodes photojournalism students and more than a dozen Nombulelo learners. The exhibition including several photos by the Nombulelo learners exhibited side-by-side with the photojournalist’s…
Author: Rod Amner
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By NOKUTHULA SIBIYA She heard someone come in, come closer, a long shadow appearing on the wall next to her. Hurry up, she thought desperately to herself. I just want to get out of here. She saw an arm push her door open wider. And then she saw who it was. Dumile. The Matric boy who they were all afraid of. He was in fights at the weekend, had scars to prove it. He saw her behind the half-open door. “Hey, look what I’ve found. A girl in the boys’ toilet!” The learners’ gasps fill the room. The anticipation of what…
By LUCAS NOWICKI Contractors have abandoned more than 50 major school upgrade projects in the Eastern Cape after government departments failed to pay them on time. Many of these schools have been stripped of valuable materials and vandalised after being abandoned. One example is Makhanda’s Grahamstown Primary School. The school moved into temporary prefabricated premises in February to make way for a R55 million upgrade. The revamp, originally due for completion in 2021, was to have included an administration block, a new library, an IT centre, and a school hall, according to the school’s principal, Leon Coetzee. Then in June,…
By JOSI SALVADORI It was a morning of pure delight for 60 preschool learners who gathered outside the Lebone Centre recently for an extended edition of the Multilingual Storytelling Programme. Cathy Gush, Lebone’s Literacy Programme co-ordinator, kicked-off the event with a warm welcome and a mini story-telling session between her and the learners. Gush’s book of choice, titled “SHHHHH!” by Sam Wilson, Alex Latimer, and Anita van der Merwe, was a real crowd pleaser and set the scene for the rest of the morning. The Multilingual Storytelling Programme, established in 2018, recruits story-tellers from the surrounding community who dress-up and…
By NOMVELO MASANGO and NOKUTHULA SIBIYA The Kingswood branch of the Intsomi programme has officially been launched. Hosted in the housekeeping staff room of Kingswood College, the event was facilitated by Intsomi coordinator, Cathy Gush. The Intsomi programme is an initiative that was started at Rhodes University in 2015. It was created to help Rhodes University Grade 1-5 staff members become agents in the development of their children’s reading and learning skills. Intsomi has been providing reading books and educational material, as well as hosting workshops to assist parents with their children’s learning outside of the classroom. Due to the…
By RUMBI NYAREBEKA Elation filled the classroom recently, as 82 learners at Samuel Ntsiko Public School were gifted with storybooks to celebrate International Literacy Day. The books were generously donated to the learners by Book Dash and the Lebone Centre, and distributed by Rhodes University Linguistics students. The Rhodes University students have been working side by side with the Grade 5 learners in Samuel Nstiko for just over eight weeks now, as part of the Linguistics and Community service-learning course. This is a collaborative initiative aimed at providing learners with opportunities for rich oral interaction as well as establishing a…
By CATHY GUSH Project Read is a programme of the Lebone Centre that makes use of community volunteers and students to support the language and literacy development of more than 100 Foundation Phase learners in St Mary’s, George Dickerson and Good Shepherd Primary schools. Funding is provided by the Vestas Empowerment Trust as part of the Primary Education Partnership in Grahamstown. Learners on the programme are allowed to borrow a storybook to take home and read on a weekly basis, but recently, in honour of National Book Week it was possible, through donations made by national organisation Book Dash, to…
Over 300 free books were recently gladly received by children and parents from a wheelbarrow outside the Lebone Centre. The books were donated by Book Dash, an organisation of creative volunteers that creates new African storybooks that anyone can freely print, translate and distribute. The wheelbarrow distribution was one of a number of events organised by the Lebone Centre and other partners this week in celebration of Literacy Month and National Book Week. The initiatives were designed to tackle the fact that many families are not able to buy books, and many children do not know the joy of owning…
Thieves and vandals have wreaked havoc on the original premises of the Grahamstown Primary School (GPS) after contractors recently abandoned a R55-million upgrade to the school due to non-payment by the Department of Basic Education. Michelle Banda and Rod Amner report. After years of planning and negotiation, Grahamstown Primary School was looking forward to a substantial revamp – including the installation of a media centre and library – by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). In a recent interview with the EP Herald, Education MEC Fundile Gade said the department had only R1.6-billion of the R4-billion needed for the completion…
By JENNA KRETZMANN For 53 years, a group of Makhanda women has been gathering in the comfort of each other’s lounges on the third Thursday of every month. They have presented around 525 essays so far on topics ranging from ‘Icons and Iconoclasts’, ‘The History of Glazing’ to ‘The Ukulele of Hawaii’. The ‘Third Thursday Essay Club of Grahamstown’ was founded in 1967 by Rosemary Smith, Betty Davenport, and Shirley Maclennan. It aims to bring intellectual stimulation to an invitation-only group of women, ranging in age from early forties to late eighties. “Controversial as it may be, to have only…