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Learner EssaysLearner Essays 2006:This year we ran a number of 2 hour essay writing workshops with our learners during the Winter school holiday programme in July. Here are some of the essays that were written by the learners during these workshops: Essay Competition of 2005:Earlier this year (2005) learners participated in a Khayelitsha based essay writing competition - The Enlightenment Project - Essay Competition. We are proud to announce that 5 of the 6 winners were IkamvaYouth learners! For more information on the competition: Submitted by: Nadine Blum (co-ordinator of the Khayelitsha competition) The essay competition was open to all students in grades 11 and 12 in the Khayelitsha area, not just those participating in Ikamva. We made an announcement about the competition in early March and handed out flyers for students to distribute in their schools. A few weeks later we held an information session where we attempted to explain the process and the philosophy behind the competition. Two weeks before the essays were due we held a workshop where students could ask questions and have a tutor look over the essay for structural and grammatical help, though we emphasized that the essays were being marked on the quality of ideas, not grammar. English is a second or even third language for most students in Khayelitsha and sciences and math often take precedence over language skills. Therefore, Ikamva saw this as a good opportunity to motivate students to improve their English. We received just under 30 essays. While we were satisfied with this level of participation, we thought that given the level of expressed interest among students and the wide distribution of flyers and posters, there would have been more submissions. It is possible that this was party attributable to the fact that there had been a holiday in between the workshop and the due date and that students, therefore, forgot about the competition. Also, similar to the experience in Ghana, some students expressed that they did not have a good chance of winning. We designed essay topics to encourage critical and creative thought on important issues facing residents of Khayelitsha: Topic 1: Your Life Lessons at 50: Imagine that it is your fiftieth birthday. A close friend is giving a speech about your life. He/she tells the people at the party about your achievements and how you overcame obstacles to get to where you are today. Now write the speech, reflecting on the past 50 years of your life. What lessons would you say you learned that were the most valuable from that time. What have you accomplished? What were the barriers to you achieving your goals? What barriers were you able to overcome by yourself? How? Which barriers required help from, or changes to be made by, family, friends, your community or larger society, in order for you to overcome them? Topic 2: Your Action Plan for Rape Prevention: 40% of reported rapes in the Western Cape occur in Khayelitsha and the vast majority (well over 90%) of these rapes are committed by men against women. Why is rape so prevalent in our community? What are the factors that turn people into rapists? How are rape survivors emotionally and/or psychologically affected by the experience? Do they get the support they need from the people around them, and society generally? Imagine you have been asked by a leader in your community to design an action plan to reduce the incidence of rape in the community. Reflecting on the observations you have made about attitudes of men and women towards rape, discuss your plan and what will be required for it to work. Students in Khayelitsha face daunting barriers to achieving their goals. According to those working with students in Khayelitsha, at times there is a sense that these barriers are insurmountable. We deliberately kept this first question broad with the hope that students would engage in critical and creative thought to ask themselves difficult questions about the nature of the barriers they face (social, cultural, economic etc.). This second question asked students to reflect on their own observations of community attitudes towards rape, question these attitudes, and then create strategies that could help to reduce the incidents of rape. While narrower in focus than the first topic, this question was similarly asking students to reflect on prevalent social attitudes and behaviours and asking, more specifically, how these attitudes can be changed. Nadine Blum and Rupa Chilukuri, interns at the time at the Women’s Legal Centre, judged the entries. They developed a marking scheme based on the philosophy of the competition and decided on the winners by consensus. We held the awards ceremony at the Library and all participants in the competition and in Ikamva were invited. First, all participants were called up by name to receive their certificate and then the top six were announced to receive awards. There was tremendous excitement in the room and there was a very supportive and positive vibe throughout. We concluded by thanking the students and the volunteers and refreshments were served. The winners were as follows: First Place – Zukile Keswa - R500 |
