The Mandela Day call to take the time on Saturday, July 18, to make a positive imprint on the world was a success according to South Africa's Sowetan newspaper. Read on to see how neighbors in Bojanala Platinum spent their time to improve the lives of young people in their district.
Sowetan
20 July 2009
Katlego Moeng
BOJANALA Platinum district municipality mayor Raymond Motsepe spent 67 minutes of his Mandela Day at Batleng High School as a step towards revamping the institution.
The school, which is located in one of South Africa’s richest mineral resource areas, is in a desperate state.
At the inaugural Mandela Day celebrations on Saturday, when people around the world were called on to commit 67 minutes of their time “to make an imprint and help change the world around them”, the school finally received some attention.
Three badly vandalised classrooms were painted. And a promise was made to continue revamping the school.
Situated about 20km outside the town of Rustenburg, Batleng High School was built in 1972 and is still the only high school in Letsema village in North West.
The ceilings of eight of its 14 classrooms are caving in and the roofs are leaking. Teachers lack basic teaching equipment and the school does not have a proper library.
Only old reference books are available at the school.
Students have no access to any computers since the school’s only two computers are used for administration purposes.
The school toilets are also in a sorry state.
Maths teacher Thapedi Seemise said: “The school has 217 grade 10 to 12 pupils, of which 52 are in matric.
“Only 12 of them do maths.” Seemise said on average only three pupils proceed to university.
“Maybe another 12 will go to a training college but the rest stay at home,” he lamented.
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