COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 2009
DSG Cleanup in Lavendar Valley
Tea at Brookshaw Old Age Home
Helping out at the SPCA
Community Engagement for the First Term of 2009
Much has happened in the area of community e`ngagement. DSG runs a hardworking Interact Board composed of grade 12s and 11s. The Community Engagement Prefect who heads up the Interact board is Rachel Nyakotey. She is ably assisted by Ashleigh Hayward, Chelsea Bruk-Jackson, Noxolo Mahlalela, Khanya Ngumbela and Thalia Bruinders. The board meets weekly to plan fund raising social events and ways of partnering with our local community. The Interact term function’s began with a beach bonding day at Kenton which created an opportunity for the new club to get to know one another. Another activity headed up and designed by Asheligh was a “Bakeathon”. This was a three day process of buying ingredients, supervising the baking of cookies and delivering them with a choral concert to two of our local Old Age Homes. We also hosted a small garage sale from the accumulation of items that have been given to us for outreach purposes. The SPCA visit provided much fun for a number of dedicated animal lovers. In the two sessions we ran we were asked to walk and groom dogs. The excitement of the animals was intimidating and yet it gave me the opportunity to witness the courage and dedication of girls who without any reservations walked into the cages and handled the large, excited, barking dogs. Chelsea, our representative at the Interact Committees of Grahamstown’s weekly meetings, organised in conjunction with all the other local committees a large clean up of the Lavender Valley. The Lavender Valley is found near Mary Waters School and has been sadly polluted and neglected. Many of the DSG girls volunteered to be a part of this inter-schools’ co-operative effort to bring greater environmental awareness. Some girls attended a Reading Camp held just outside Grahamstown at the Hobbiton-on-Fairewood Centre. The girls worked through a structured program design to enhance the reading skills of the younger children attending the camp. These are just some of the many activities which have happened through Interact this term.
There are a few Tuesday Clubs which run a community engagement program. The Grade 8s will all engage in some community service through this allocated time. This term the girls have been making posters, puppets, teaching aids and other useful teaching items to donate to Tyhilulwazi Preschool. They also got their hands dirty painting out a pink classroom.
The President’s Award Program is also actively supported at DSG. The community service, physical recreation and other opportunities provide the accumulation of hours needed to qualify for the different levels in this internationally recognized Award for Young People.
DSG also shares its resources with those with less access to the same. In the last term the Centre for Social Development and the Department of Sport have been running swimming lessons for local disadvantaged children to swim in the outdoor pool. The Loseby School program runs on a Thursday afternoon to provide academic support for gifted pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. These learners attend extra Maths, Science and English Lessons run by DSG.
None of the above activities would have been possible without the dedication of our DSG drivers who I have come to really appreciate and the good food provided timely by KKS.
I hope the girls have a pleasant rest and come back determined to engage in some community service activities.
Sue Paton
Kelly Long to represent South Africa 25th January 2012
Kelly Long will represent South Africa at the 5th International Sustainable World Project Olympiad in the USA
