Dichaba believes in power of spelling bee

Etwatwa resident Thabang Dichaba believes Spelling Bee projects can help alleviate the comprehension problems experienced by primary school learners.

Dichaba wants to foster a culture of reading. He founded the Bacha Ba Dichaba NPO in November 2014, because he wanted to coordinate Spelling Bee competitions in Gauteng.

He has since led competitions and literacy programmes in Etwatwa to assist learners.

“We want to improve the literacy of our learners and those at university. We realised that most first-year university students struggle with grammar and the construction of sentences.

“Spelling Bee helps improve literacy, encourages the culture of reading to understand and public speaking,” he said.

Through this organisation, Daveyton resident Ntombenhle Mdluli won a scholarship to Dubai in 2021, while local learners were able to participate and win an international Spelling Bee trophy in Lesotho last year.

According to Dichaba, the socio-economic problems in South Africa can be defeated by an educated citizenry.

“I still want to further my studies. We are faced with many challenges where we live and youth centres and libraries are the only places we have to relieve our stress.

“Load-shedding, water-shedding and other political problems are affecting us, but fortunately we are in the fourth industrial revolution which enables us to easily access information.”

The Etwatwa resident pointed out that literacy issues mostly affect learners from township schools. He said it is for this reason he has dedicated his time to Spelling Bee projects to help local schools.

However, he said this has not been easy because of barriers created by some officials from the district Department of Education.

“Such projects don’t get attention in townships. For example, we have more than 23 schools in Etwatwa and the National Department of Basic Education is happy to work with organisations like ours, but we struggle a lot when we have to invite schools to our competitions due to district officials.”

Mentorship camp

After recent research he did at local schools that revealed most Grade Six learners cannot read to understand, the 29-year-old will host a mentorship camp in May where they will ‘teach a boy to fight a man’s battle’.

The camp will cover topics such as peer pressure and issues affecting the boy child, which Dichaba said resulted in poor performance at school.

“We need to create a space where they can talk about their problems. Our main reason for the camp is to emphasise gender-based violence (GBV). You will often hear cases in schools where boys are accused of spanking girls. They have to know that behaviour is wrong.

“We want to raise boys who will know that violence against women and children is against the law,” said Dichaba.

He thanked organisations such as the 100% Foundation and the South African Association of Youth Clubs for their assistance throughout the years.

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