June News

This month we commemorated Youth Day in South Africa but 36 years after the Soweto Uprising of 1976 the greatest crisis facing our nation is still education. The School of Hope has aligned itself with Symphonia's movement Schools at the Centre of the Community and Partners for Possibility in the hope of being part of the solution…And hope is what we have when we consider the fifteen Grade 12 learners currently writing mid-year examinations at the School of Hope. A small number? Perhaps, if you compare them to 120-200 matrics in large public and private schools. Yet each one has a story of courage and perseverance that makes the group seem larger than life.

Six have spent time on the streets; at least two of them for more than five years. Two head their households. One is the devoted mother of a three-year old. Three are refugees, far from their families and homes. Most know the struggle to survive first hand. They range in age from 18 to 24 years so, unlike most of their contemporaries in other schools, they have to make up for time lost in and out of school. All of them have extraordinary stories and the desire to complete their education and start a productive and meaningful life.

They are weeks away from a two-week trip of a life-time to New York. Then it will be back to Saturday classes, extra tuition, trial exams and the countdown to their final examinations. The challenges of their past will be far behind them as they join half a million Grade 12 learners nationwide in the most significant milestone of their school career.

This week they received blazers and badges, setting them apart from their peers at School of Hope to whom they have become an inspiration. The intention is to place on them a mantle of success, which symbolises our expectation that they will succeed, as students, as people and as leaders in their communities.

Please make this extraordinary group of young people the object of your prayers until the end of the year. Your investment in time will produce a high return. The nation needs them to succeed and if they succeed, we all succeed.