Partners for Possibility’s (PfP) NEL 2 Circle walked down memory lane during a celebration event at Cyril Clarke Secondary School.

NEL2 Circle is made up of eight business partners and eight school principals.

Many projects are still works in progress, but the outcome, in the minds of this dynamic group, has already been achieved.

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PfP is a co-action, co-learning partnership between school principals and business leaders which aims to enable social cohesion through partnerships between business, government and the social sector to empower principals to become change leaders in their schools and communities. It is a “creative solution to South Africa’s education crisis”.

According to Mel Tomlinson, the facilitator of this group, those involved experienced an amazing journey together.

The first three months are all about building relationships with one another.

“It is really frustrating for business people to get stuck and not start fixing and changing all the things that we feel are wrong immediately.

We first have to understand the environment and learn what the needs of every school are, before we can get stuck into the application of many solutions. It is quite a beautiful relationship-building experience,” she said.

Lowveld Media partnered with PfP and they gave learners from different schools an opportunity to visit the offices to see how newspapers are produced and create their own school pages through the school page project, initiated by Matthys Ferreira.

Lethukuthula Zulu, a pupil from Zwelitsha Primary School, did a presentation about his experience when he visited the newspaper’s offices.

According to him, it all started when they were instructed to write about their school kitchen. It was titled “Change from ancient to modern kitchens”.

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“At first I thought that it was easy-peasy. Then I went home and did my write-up and after that we submitted our work. I was one of the lucky pupils to be selected and my mom and I then started preparing for the visit. She washed my uniform and she told me to polish my shoes.

Soon after that I travelled to Lowveld Media. When we arrived there, we met Matthys Ferreira and Bongani Hlatshwayo. We were given a tour during which we were introduced to the main elements of newspaper production.

“The next day at school when we received the newspaper, we sold it like hotcakes and it helped us raise funds for our school. We were so happy to see ourselves in the newspaper and we were trending on social media.
“I want to thank PfP, our beautiful teachers and Mr Matthys who gave us the opportunity to shine,” he concluded.

The beauty of the PfP initiative is that through these circles, the team creates a list of possible solutions and projects, which are then implemented by the various partnerships as per the needs of the particular school.

Projects include recycling, upgrading of infrastructure, libraries and computer services, security, a wonderful history writing project at John Mdluli, veggie gardens and various fund-raising initiatives.

The needs are many. These schools may be underfunded and rural, but there is no shortage of talent and an inspiring willingness to excel despite the challenges at hand. Should you wish to get involved, Mel Tomlinson can be contacted on mel@symphonia.net.