Feedback from Participants
Info for 2010 | 2010 Dates | Weekend Format | Sponsors Return | Sponsorship Cost | Food Fund | Feedback from Participants
‘We will certainly be back again and again’
Elayne Tranter, DoculamI would just like to thank you and all your team and all the other sponsors for a wonderful weekend. It does not matter how many rallies you attend, each visit to a school is special and very emotional. I think the sponsors get as much out of the visits to the schools as the learners, educators and parents do, if not more, and each school visited brings back specific memories – with our visit to Stafford school being the two small learners in their blue beanies, scarves and gloves.
I would just like to share with you our first experience of Rally to Read in 2003. The very first school we ever visited was Mhloshana Primary in the central Berg area. The educators all dressed up in their traditional clothes and they and the learners put on a spectacular dance and song performance. At the time there were only two classrooms for 360 learners with three classes being held in each classroom, with the Principal also in the same room. When we returned the following year another classroom was being built – from a building fund that the parents were contributing to, despite their poverty. On our third visit the Department of Education had also built onto this school.
Between the Rally to Read visits, I attended one of the Read educator training sessions in Bergville to see how Read trained the educators to use the books. I also visited three of the schools with the Read trainer, including Mhloshana, and witnessed the three classes with three teachers being taught in one classroom with the Principal trying to do her work in the corner. How any child could learn or teachers cope in these circumstances, but they did, and with great enthusiasm. It was great to see the improvement in their learning thanks to Rally to Read, and to see more classrooms being built to improve their learning conditions.
On the first visit to the area, ARD, the German TV station, were filming the Rally to Read event and we had the privilege of visiting one of the learners’ homesteads. It would do all our children good to see what a 10-year-old rural child has to do on a Sunday – collecting water from a tiny hole with a tin can and waiting for the water hole to fill up before getting the next tinful, doing the washing, mixing soil and water and plastering the rondavel. And even though they have so little, we were given tea and gifts as we left – Fiona and I a jar of apricots and the ARD team something to smoke!
What was even more wonderful about Mhloshana School was when my brother and wife from the USA (who were individual Rally to Read sponsors) visited with two friends, I phoned the Principal to ask if we could visit the school. This was arranged for 11.00 on a Saturday and when we got to the bottom of the road we were stopped by some learners who asked us to wait, as they were not ready for us. When we were told it was OK to proceed we were greeted by the educators and learners in traditional costume singing and dancing for us. You cannot believe how emotional it was for everyone. We stayed near the school at the Mnweni Hiking and Tourist Centre run by the local community and visited the local shebeen. Our guests have never stopped speaking fondly of their visit and say it is the best holiday they have ever had.
There are not enough words to say what a difference Rally to Read makes to these rural educators, learners and parents’ lives and it is a privilege to be part of it – we will certainly be back again and again. I would certainly encourage any of the sponsors to revisit some of the schools as I did, to see how well they are doing during normal term time and they certainly appreciate it.