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Three2Six newsletter - August 2024
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End-of-term Olympics fun day
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The project and our host school celebrated the Olympic Games with a series of activities to round off term 2. The older students challenged their minds on Olympics-themed quizzes, while our younger ones took part in a variety of fun, fast-paced games. These included stacking challenges, a loop race through the school playground, a balloon relay, and other exciting activities.
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The walls of the pre-primary school were beautifully adorned with our children’s drawings and colourings inspired by the Olympic theme. See you all in September!
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Staff update
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We are thrilled to welcome a new member to our team! Anna-Lena joined us from Germany at the beginning of August. Her sending organization, Kindermissionswerk – Die Sternsinger, has been a partner of Three2Six for many years.
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Anna-Lena recently graduated from high school and is taking a gap year before starting university next year. She will be with us for a year, supporting our team with classroom activities, supervision, physical education, communications, and other aspects of the project.
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Here is her message: "I am beyond excited to volunteer at Three2Six for the next year. It’s an incredible opportunity, and I am truly grateful to embark on this experience. I look forward to learning from the amazing people here, experiencing the rich culture and contributing in any way I can. Thank you for welcoming me so kindly!"
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We are very grateful to have her with us and offer her a very warm welcome!
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Remedial support programme
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Dorothy DeNoto, a Lay Marist from New York City working as a teacher at a Marist School in the United States, joined us for the month of August. Given her educational background, she agreed to run an enrichment programme for our grade 7 students who face academic struggles. Here is an excerpt of an article Dorothy wrote about this experience:
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“I was given the task of developing a six-day program for 7th grade students who were failing. Their standardized test scores in Skimming, Vocabulary, Reading for Facts, Points of View, and Reading Comprehension were all over the spectrum, with Reading Comprehension being the weakest. During my meeting with the Three2Six team, I informed them that I could give the children a program that reinforced their skills, and enhanced their self-esteem and spiritual beings so that when our time together was over they were feeling good about themselves and capable. My role would be to get them emotionally ready to work in the third trimester.
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Our days included meditation, open group discussions about what is going on in their lives, outdoor fun, amazing lunches which included baked goods made with “love”, crafts, music, and of course, projects and worksheets that focused on the areas that they were weakest in. I chose activities that were from the 6th grade level, kind of as a reinforcement of skills from last year, but in reality, were skills that needed to be practiced. The work activities included reading passages and answering questions relating to the stories, re-writing sentences, oral presentations, proper spelling of vocabulary words, interpreting what they were reading and reading comprehension. We sure had fun, even when completing the sometimes-challenging material.
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We built upon our successes and wound up creating a unique newspaper, which included news articles written by them, a newspaper cover page, and a classified section. The Classified section was filled with ads that they created using their dream business enterprise. They even drew pictures to go along with their advertisements.
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The ultimate success showed up in the form of the Haiku poems that they each created. They had to read about haikus, read a sample one, answer the questions on the worksheet about Haikus and finally write their own. I pasted their Haikus on a poster board so that they can be displayed. The students were proud of them as well as their newspaper. They felt accomplished and actually believed in themselves.
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Was the program successful? I’ll answer it this way. I was called up in front of the church alter during the school mass. The principal then asked one of my class members to come up to hand me a book about Apartheid. Sure, she came up, but one at a time, my other students from that class got up and came up to that alter as well. They were showing me how much that time together meant to them. They are ready to begin the third trimester, filled with self-esteem and love in their hearts. Drop the baton, my job for the moment, was complete…
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My role as a Marist educator is to love all children equally. I call upon the Holy Spirit to assist me in doing just that. When my students and I stood together in solidarity at the mass, I knew that the Holy Spirit was alive and well in us all. Now it’s onward and upward for those young pre-teens. Namaste!”
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Donation
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Coming together to support those in need. The community of St David’s Marist Inanda united to prepare easy-to-make soup packs for our families. The children were thrilled to take them home for the holidays. Thank you to everyone who contributed, helping to make a meaningful difference for our families.
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Eleven of our children with eye problems were generously screened for free by Dr Essay for free. Now that they have been screened this month, they will receive glasses in the coming weeks. Thank you so much, Doctor, for your incredible support!
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In celebration of Women’s Month, a group of Three2Six mothers was invited to attend the “Women’s health presentation” at the St Charles Clinic. The event began with a shared breakfast, followed by an insightful presentation from Professor Carol Benn on breast cancer awareness, and Dr K Khulu discussed the benefits of the HPV vaccination in preventing cervical cancer. Mothers who were interested had the opportunity to receive the vaccine. The day concluded with lunch. Thank you to Fr Eduardo for the invitation and contributing to the wellbeing of our families.
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Social media partnership
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In August, Three2Six and its partners, Misean Cara and FMSI, collaborated on another online post to share some exciting news: Misean Cara has committed to financially supporting the project for another three years. Find out more here!
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Alumni day
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Given the current occasion of the Olympic Games, the children formed groups of three and chose a country of their choice to investigate whether that country would be suitable to host the Olympics. They focused on three questions: why the chosen country is a suitable place for hosting the Olympics, what good virtues the country has and what benefits hosting the Olympics would have for the country. Additionally, they were asked to choose an appropriate mascot. At the end of the day, they presented their work, improving their presentation skills in the process.
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Each donation counts and helps us make a valuable change in the lives of our learners.
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