We are thrilled to announce that 21 of our wonderful RAGA students were awarded their President’s Award youth empowerment bronze medals on the 23rd June 2016 at a ceremony held in the Town Hall of Worcester. There were numerous dignitaries who attended the ceremony including the Minister of Social Development in the Western Cape – MEC Albert Fritz; CEO of the President’s Award SA – Ms Lara Kruiskamp and of course the special and most important guests, the award recipients. The atmosphere was one of excitement as our very smart and proud students took their seats along with other award recipients from the Western Cape region. Our students were acknowledged for their accomplishments, and deservedly so.
Congratulations and Feedback
The proud staff members of RAGA in attendance were so pleased to receive so many wonderful compliments about our students. Their poise, enthusiasm, fabulous good manners, politeness and energy were mentioned time after time by the other attendees. Our students flew the RAGA flag very well that day!
RAGA Student Centre Stage
One very proud moment for the RAGA team was the speech delivered by our very own Ashleigh McKie. An increasingly accomplished public speaker, she was chosen by the President Award leaders to address the audience. Public speaking has, for many years, been one of RAGA’s core life skill offerings and the benefits of this training were much in evidence on the day.
BELOW LEFT: CEO, OF PRESIDENTS AWARD MISS LARA KRUISKAMP ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE
BELOW RIGHT: ASHLEIGH McKIE AND THE MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, MEC ALBERT FRITZ DELIVER THEIR SPEECHES AT THE PRESIDENT’S AWARD CEREMONY
A QUICK RECAP – WHAT IS THE PRESIDENT’S AWARD?
The President’s Award, part of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, is an international youth empowerment qualification. There are currently nearly one million young people across 132 countries engaged on the programme. The President’s Award is aligned to the culture of RAGA and has become the foundation on which the RAGA Life Skills programme is built.
ABOVE: THE RAGA TEAM ENJOYING A FUN FUNDRAISER EVENING AT SPUR
SIGNING ONTO THE PROGRAMME: WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY AT RAGA!
BELOW: STUDENTS GETTING INVOLVED IN THE COMMUNITY CLEAN UPS IN MASIPHUMELELE
To kick off the President’s Award the students started to fund-raise to pay their own President Award registration fee. The students felt they wanted to contribute financially and not just rely on RAGA to pay; they felt that this is “their programme” and they wanted to take ownership of it. They went about fundraising by working at one of our local Spur restaurants. Once they had raised their fees they were ready to start the tasks.
Community Service: Each participant is required to complete consistent community service over a three month period. The aim is to impact positively on the community or an individual within that community. A very good example of this was the community clean ups in Masiphumelele, where many of our students live. It wasn’t long before the locals joined in the regular weekly clean ups!
EDUCATION • LIFE SKILLS • GOLF
Other community service included assisting with feeding schemes in Ocean View where numerous RAGA students also live, and helping at the Sinethemba Crèche for children with disabilities. Recognising the plight of many elderly people, the students assisted the elderly with garage and garden clean ups and maintenance. The TEARS Animal Rescue Centre welcomed the weekly dog walking and it became evident that the dogs got to know their walkers quickly and were very excited to see them each week.
It has been so lovely to receive so many messages of thanks and support from the community during the community service programme. And more importantly, it is great now that so many students have pledged to carry on their community service activities in the future.
An Adventurous Hike: Learning to be self-sufficient, responsible, to take leadership roles and to push oneself physically are fundamental objectives behind an excursion of this nature. No adult intervention (apart from supervision and monitoring) was allowed for this particular task as it would defeat the purpose of the camp. Under the supervision of the award team leader, the students had to prepare for and organise a 24km hike. This meant that they budgeted and shopped for groceries and drew up a checklist of what would be needed for the camp and hike. They hiked, set up camp, cooked and cleaned up the next day for the rest of the hike. It was particularly pleasing to witness the teamwork and organisational skills that the students showed leading up to and throughout the course of the weekend.
ABOVE: STUDENTS ENJOYING THE BEACH AND PREPPING DINNER WHILE ON THEIR MASSIVE 24KM HIKE
Learning a New Skill: Over a period of six months in which to achieve the Award, a student has to learn a skill and be able to demonstrate consistent improvement. This process is monitored by a President Award leader, in our case Roxy Holman. Our junior students collectively chose to learn public speaking. From initially being very shy and understandably feeling somewhat intimidated, it wasn’t long before their confidence improved enabling them to stand up in front of an audience and deliver a great speech. During their time at RAGA we will continue to work with them to keep improving this very important skill.
The senior students decided to pick individual skills, these included a really diverse range of interests from ballroom dancing through to baking. Lunga Kibi took swimming improvement lessons to enable him to feel more confident in water, especially as he enjoys the odd weekend of surfing.
Physical Activity: The students are required to undertake regular physical activities over the course of the programme. It was no surprise that the students chose golf! Considering that many of the students are relatively new to the game of golf, weekly lessons with a PGA professional and practice sessions gave the students an opportunity to really improve their understanding and ability to play golf. The senior students who have been involved in playing the game for a few years were able to improve on their handicaps and this has showed in some wonderful tournament results over the past few months.
However, to add to this the students all took up the popular fitness functional training regime known as CrossFit. The weekly CrossFit sessions, run by a qualified trainer, significantly improved their physical fitness which is essential to playing golf to the best of their ability. This increased fitness also improves their ability to work hard at school, concentrate and power through their school books!
RAGA STUDENTS WITH THEIR PRESIDENT’S AWARD
The Silver Award
In closing this special edition we are pleased to announce that the students have made a decision to complete the President’s Award Silver Medal over the coming year. We will keep our readers informed of their progress. For now the students are enjoying a well-deserved break to sit back, relax and enjoy the school holidays. Congratulations to all of the students on receiving this prestigious award. We are all very proud.
