Balang Foundation held its annual excursion programme in order to accelerate its bursars’
self-development in three areas: reading, self-management and leadership skills
and habits. The excursion was held on the 22 and 23 August 2014 at MJ Gateway
Lodge- about 3 kilometres west of the City of Polokwane, Limpopo Province. Fifteen primary school learners from
various schools in the Province were transported to the venue, with a few
accompanied by siblings, teachers and parents. This group included new 5
learners from the 2014 cohort and the other 10 came from the 2012 and 2013
cohorts. The learners were excited
to be away from home and to interact with peers and role models outside of
their normal daily experiences.
On the first day
of the excursion (22 August), the learners arrived at the University of
Limpopo’s Performing Arts Centre as a meeting point and a place to get inspiration
from university students who model success, resilience and drive to put dreams
to a test. This way the learners were able to see themselves beyond primary
school and to invigorate their dreams of being educated and successful in life.
After this university stop-over, they proceeded to the workshop venue where
they began with team building activities till the late hours of the night. The
workshop facilitators provided them with English and home language reading
materials to read at night in preparation for presentations, reflections and
discussions that were scheduled for the following day.
The second day
of the excursion included more team building and relaxation exercises, tongue
twisters and writing activities that included reflections on the evening
experiences at the Lodge. Together with reading tasks, these activities fed
into the Foundation’s mission to build confidence in the learners so they
maximize the experience of living within the remit of who they are: self
awareness, self esteem and self actualization. The learners understood three
key ideas around the workshop: who they
are (Balang Ambassadors), what they
are (Future leaders) and why they are
(to be the change they want to see).
During the
activities, the learners wrote short stories and were engaged in high level
discussion points, focusing on evaluation of issues they considered ‘social
ills’ in their immediate communities, their schools and families. The themes
that emerged from their free writings included a pattern of homosexual
tendencies at their schools, bullying at schools, gratitude to Balang
Foundation for having turned their lives around and brought hope for a
successful future. This is a prototypical example of accolades to Balang
Foundation:
Ke a leboga Balang Foundation. Ge nka be e se ka wena, ga ke tsebe gore
nkabe ke le kae. Ke a leboga go menagane ke re Modimo a lefe mahlatse le
mahlogonolo.
‘Thank you Balang Foundation; if it wasn’t for you, I would not have
reached this far in life. I say thank you and may God accord you fortunes and
blessings.’
Other themes
included unresolved tension between home language and English at school, death
of parents, harsh conditions of being a child, discrimination, struggle for
water and social grants, boys disrespecting teachers, dreams to succeed, and
love for parents.
One of the
outstanding experiences in this workshop was training for the children’s use of
two languages to acquire vocabulary and adopt bilingual reading strategies.
Giving them readings in both their home language and English was meant to
enhance simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) development of reading skills
and habits in two languages- something they don’t usually do at school. The
Foundation had taken a decision that reading cannot be developed in isolated
languages among bilinguals or multilingual children. Comparison and contrasting
reading between two languages provided them versatility, flexibility, multiple
access points to knowledge in more than one language- biliteracy skills they
need for the future. The facilitators noticed that the bursars heartily enjoyed
the experience of exchanging languages because it valorized what they brought
with them into the reading space. It became apparent that home language
represented who they are and English
doubled their ‘who-ness’ and prepared them for a curriculum that is carried out
through its medium. The children had reading sessions and opportunities to
alternate languages of input and output (listening in one language and
responding in another language; reading in one language and writing in another=
translanguaging). This exercise proved successful in engaging the learners’
thinking processes, enhancing deeper understanding and affirming a sense of who
they were becoming: future home language and English users. The enthusiasm
recorded while they were receiving stories in one language and re-telling them
in another language was encouraging that it might be possible to explore this
as an option to support literacy in more than one language in their classrooms.
Towards the end
of the workshops, the bursars were coached on self-management, the values of
Balang Foundation as ambassadors and on how to stay true to who they are. The
principles were stated in English and Sepedi (their home language) as follows:
·
Be who you are (Le se be bomarata helele!)
·
Know who you want to be (tseba gore o nyaka go
ba eng kamoso)
·
Believe in the future (Dumela gore bokamoso bo
tla ba bjo bokaone)
·
Make reading your best friend: the only way you
succeed (Balang!)
·
Schedule your life: Humans are not animals; they
reflect and plan
·
Spend your 168 hours per week wisely (nako e
bohlokwahlokwa!)
·
Prioritize (Kgetha tseo de lego bohlokwa
After the
coaching session, the bursars filled in a grid to start scheduling of their
daily activities and committed to reading and sharing their stories for at
least 15 minutes before they sleep.
Overall, the
excursion programme was successful in instilling confidence in the bursars,
giving them assurances that success is within their reach, making them take charge
of their lives, to control and manage their schedules, and read more and more.
In this way, they knew who they are (ambassadors), what they are (future
leaders), and why they are (to become the change they want to see!)
