Making a positive difference this Mandela Day
LEAP students and partners were involved in multiple community initiatives and activities making a positive difference this Mandela Day.
Several organisations partnered with our schools in various ways to honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy. These included providing our students with careers days, job shadowing experiences, inviting our students to be a part of city-wide Mandela Day activities and painting our classrooms. Our students learnt a lot from these initiatives and gained more insight into various different careers.
LEAP 1
LEAP 1 visited four of our partner social development sites in Langa including two old age homes and two crèches. At the old age homes, the students held a mini spa day and treated the residents to foot massages and manicures. They also chatted to the residents about Mandela Day and what it means to them. At the crèches, the students made the children happy by distributing books and reading to them. LEAP students and teachers also served soup some to the children and elderly living in Langa. The remainder of the soup was given to the Conradie Hospital, a hospital near to LEAP 1. The soup was welcomed by all on a very wet and cold winter’s day in Cape Town.
LEAP 2
LEAP 2 held a Careers Day to inform students about various careers that they are interested in as well as expose them to new career opportunities that they might not have thought about. LEAP students were dressed in business wear to get them feeling as though they were going to work. Several Cape Town based companies as well as several past students who are now successfully employed participated in this careers day. Deloitte and the Actuarial Society shared information about accounting related careers and the qualifications needed for each career. As some LEAP students aspire to be teachers through our Future Leaders Programme, several teachers were also invited to speak about teaching as a career. Teachers from LEAP, Pinelands High School, Herschel Girl’s School and Western Province Preparatory school spoke to the students about life as an Early Childhood Development (ECD) teacher, primary school teacher and a high school teacher. A presenter from Radio Taxi spoke about being a radio presenter and careers in the media and communications field. Past LEAP student, Chumani Mgele, an IT professional working for the City of Cape Town informed the students about careers in IT. Bakers Hughes, Cape Ray Medical and Jeffares & Green enlightened the students about careers in engineering and a speaker who works for Ocean Rig shared information about off-shore careers and how to get started. The students gained valuable knowledge about many new careers that they have not thought of pursuing and were inspired by the speakers. Thank you to everyone that were involved in this exciting careers day.
LEAP 3 – Alexandra
ARM (African Rainbow Minerals) sponsored a careers day for our LEAP 3 students. The careers day was held on the 4th of July 2014 in celebration of Mandela month. Thank you to ARM, The Mining Qualifications Authority, Gauteng City Region Academy, Department of Mineral Resources, Ekurhuleni East FET College, Women in Mining SA and Eduloan who all exhibited on the day. Not only did the students gain more insight on the various careers available in the mining sector, but they each received a goody bag, stationery and a wholesome, nutritious lunch. Thank you ARM!
LEAP 4 – Diepsloot
As part of the Stop Hunger Now campaign, a group of LEAP 4 students joined Fluor and a host of other organisations for the Meals in Memory event at the Sandton Convention Centre. Thousands of nutritious meal packets were filled with rice, soya, dried vegetables and a soup sachet. These meal packs were then packaged into boxes, ready for distribution. These boxes will be distributed by the Stop Hunger Now campaign to communities that really need it.
While some LEAP 4 students were part of this initiative, the others celebrated Mandela Day by painting three pre-school centres in Dieplsoot and providing a soup kitchen to the poorest parts of Diepsloot. They brought smiles to young faces and provided warm soup to many hungry people on a cold winter’s day.
In honour of Mandela Day, Aveng, the key sponsor of LEAP 4, distributed beanies to all our students. These will keep our learners warm during the harsh Johannesburg winter. Thank you to Aveng for being a key LEAP partner and for this great initiative.
Jeffares & Green provided LEAP 4 students with a job shadowing experience on the 17th of July 2014. These students experienced first-hand the various engineering careers available at Jeffares and Green and every student also received a scarf, beanie and goody bag.
LEAP 5
At LEAP 5 in Limpopo, Jane Furse Building Supplies celebrated the day with LEAP 5 staff and students and assisted in cleaning the school and repairing broken windows. They ensured that the school was sparkling clean and ready for the new term. They also assisted in cleaning and packing mealies for the school. The mealies were harvested from LEAP 5’s very own farm and were packaged into ten bags, each weighing 90kg. These will now be sent to a nearby mill and grounded into maize meal. This maize meal will then be used to prepare nutritious tasty meals for the LEAP 5 students.
LEAP 6- Ga-Rankuwa
Zonkems, a company based in Johannesburg painted the walls of LEAP 6 with beautiful pictures of Nelson Mandela and many inspiring quotes. Zonkems also provided two motivational speakers to motivate LEAP 6 students to believe that they can be successful no matter what their past or current circumstances may be.
Social Media
In honour of Nelson Mandela Day, LEAP ran a social media campaign asking people to “Take a #LEAPIE for education this #MandelaDay.” People were asked to like LEAP’s Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter and get someone to take a picture of them leaping (a #LEAPIE) and post this to Facebook and/or Twitter. They were encouraged to donate R30 to LEAP by texting 42460.
Thank you to our partners Tsogo Sun who provided a two night stay at any Tsogo Sun Hotel as a prize for this campaign. Congratulations to Natalie Koopman, the winner of this amazing prize. Thank you to all that participated in this campaign.
Thank you
A big thank you to all our partners and the LEAP students making a positive difference this Mandela Day!
