Sakha Ulutsha Lwethu

Changemaker: Simamkele Blossom Dlakavu

Sakha seeks to change this status quo through running workshops in rural and township schools around South Africa. These workshops are run and facilitated by university students from the exact communities and this provides personal experience where students are able to relate to the facilitators because the facilitators themselves act as role models that the learners can truly relate to because they share the same backgrounds and face the same socio-economic challenges.

Knowledge is shared on the relevant opportunities and information for furthering their studies. Through providing physical application forms from various institutions of higher learning in South Africa, Bursary and Financial Aid forms; career guidance as well as providing them with a study manual that will hopefully improve their study techniques and encourage academic excellence. Overall our objective is to change impoverished mindsets with low ambition to encouraging the setting of personal goals and academic excellence.

From the 11th to the 13th of March this was achieved by Simamkele Dlakavu and Gcobani Qambela who are both Global Change-makers, the DadFund and other young activists from South Africa. They hosted 25 workshops in 25 rural and township schools with other young volunteers. Those workshops impacted almost 3000 students.

Young people from rural and township schools in South Africa have slimmer chances of furthering their studies after completing high school even though they make up the majority of the schooling population. This is due to lack of funds, not qualifying for university entrance, lack of desire because university is seen as an “intangible dream” and the lack of information. Sakha Ulutsha Lwethu seeks to change this picture by increasing the number of rural and township youth who aspire, qualify and can afford to further their studies after high school. We do this through the workshops we hold in various rural and township schools. Our workshops focus on academic excellence; career guidance; financial aid and scholarships; institutions of higher learning as well as coaching to break the mindsets of inferiority. We also print physical application forms from institutions of higher learning and scholarship application forms because for these students it’s not as easy as printing them from the internet. Sakha was founded in 2011 and to date has reached over 1000 students around the Queenstown region in the Eastern Province of South Africa. This year we plan on reaching more students from 25 schools during our “5 days of impact” workshops in March 2013. For more info please visit: http://www.dadfund.org