World Changers Academy Newsletter
July - November 2004 (Edition #1)
Unemployed Students’ Programmes
We ran a leadership course of 50
students from June – August, which was our 5th community leadership
school. These students were identified
out of the more than 1100 students that we had trained in the previous life
skills course. They went out to train 150 more unemployed students in four-week life skills
courses at 10 centres across the city in
July/August. From these life skills
students, another 39 were selected for the next
leadership course (school #6), which started in September and will finish at
the end of November. These latter
leadership students have just completed another round of life skills courses,
training 150 at 10
different centres. We also had a 1 ½ hour
radio show daily for the 4-week duration of this course on Radio KNI, a Zulu
Christian community radio station.
Prince Manyoni, a recent addition to our staff (and previously our student
in January) has done an excellent job in coordinating most of these
programmes. Since the role is so immense,
next year Msizi Gumede, a student from our first life-skills course, will take
over the life-skills programmes, while Prince continues with the leadership
programmes.
High School Student’s Programmes
Leadership Courses
Nombuso Dimba took over coordinating the high school
leadership programmes in June from Khosi Xaso, who left to train teachers at
Focus on the Family. Nombuso started
with a bang, leading the largest leadership course that World Changers has
hosted with 73 high school students attending
from 10 schools. She spent many hours on the road with Ruth Ann White, Joe White’s
mother, travelling to schools all across the city, mobilizing them for the
course. In late September, Nombuso
coordinated our 7th, 7-day high school leadership course with 38 students.
Two more leadership courses are scheduled for the end of this year
(November/December).
Life Skills Courses
Simangele Khawula-White (notice the new surname) rejoined
World Changers in June to coordinate with Nombuso our first major life skills outreach
for high school kids, which took place in July. This 5-day course was run in 8
centres and had 173 students. The leadership students from the June
community leadership course were utilised to facilitate this course at the
various centres. One centre had good
exposure on a new community television station. The second life skills outreach for high school kids took place
in late September, at the same time as the leadership course, with 150 kids from 10 centres. A final one this year will be a 10 day
programme in November/December.
Christian Discipleship Programme
We’ve sent about 25 World Changer’s students on Youth With
A Mission (YWAM) discipleship courses at 5 different locations in the last two
years (20 during this year), all of whom have been sponsored almost fully. However, many more of our students would
love to do the courses but are limited by financial constraints. Also, with the experience of many of our
staff members in YWAM (9 staff members have done YWAM courses), we saw that we
could help meet the need students have for Christian discipleship programmes. So in July we ran our first 3-month discipleship
programme for 7 students. We plan to
carry on running similar programmes in the future. Michael Jali, who did his DTS in Belfast and who also lead the
March community leadership school, facilitated this course.
Staff Profile (Sizwe Mthembu)
Student Profile
General News
New Administration
Team
Geoffrey Kingsford, a former administrator in the
Australian military for 20 years, recently joined World Changers to take over
the administration. He has radically
improved the functioning of the organisation, filling a much-needed role. He came to South Africa in April, co-leading
a YWAM team and during this time helped run a World Changers course with his
team and also met his wife to be, Michelle Levine. They married in August. Geoff
has also taken a few World Changers staff under his wing, Sandile and Mbongwa.
New Follow-up Team
Joseph Cele, a student from our first leadership course,
has rejoined World Changers, firstly to run a life skills course in April-May,
and now to coordinate follow-up for former World Changers students (which now
number in the thousands). He has joined
with another former leadership student, Nkosingiphile Mathe, in this task. They will focus on helping students find
employment and further training opportunities, as well as continuing to educate
and motivate students once they’ve passed through our main programmes.
Learnerships
We’ve placed a number of former students into 1-year
learnerships. Learnerships are
government sponsored programmes which involve 30% of class theory training with
70% of work experience within a company for a year. It is a form of apprenticeship.
Scores of our World Changers students have gone into learnerships, often
with our help. World Changers will take
on 15 learners next year in Marketing & Sales and possibly another 10-20 in
Community Development. With these
learnerships, the learners will be able to assist World Changers, while getting
a recognized qualification and a monthly allowance of between R400 – R1200.
Finances
The finances have been very tight ever since World
Changers started. The income has grown
a lot since the birth of the organisation, but not fast enough to keep pace
with the growth in the work. Geoff has
helped to bring order in this department, and has set us up for good
governance, but now the critical part has come to bring in more money. Joe White has been starting to work heavily
in this area, writing proposals, finalizing registration processes of the
organisation and contacting companies. Also,
a number of creative initiatives have been started, or are in the pipeline to
generate income, such as a cultural tourism business, a training business into
companies, farming at the leadership centre, student alumni fundraising and
fundraising events. We have been
spending between R30 000 and R40 000 per month for the whole organisation (used
mostly by administration, food and accommodation costs at the leadership centre
and staff contributions). Less than
half of this amount is money that can be relied on month to month. Miracles continue to happen to keep the
organisation afloat.