One of the main buildings of the Westbury Youth Centre was a boarding school before 1994 and is considered the centre’s biggest intervention project to boost the Westbury Secondary School’s pass rate. Reggie Botha, centre manager, explained, “If you look at the design of the surrounding space, it’s not very good. What people don’t realise is that there can be up to 14–16 people living in a one-bedroom apartment.”
He continued, “If one is a matriculant, then they are at an immediate disadvantage. It’s noisy and crowded. The school identifies which pupils are at risk. They go to where the pupils live and they place them in the dormitories to give them a place to study in peace. The matric pass rate has improved from 40 per cent to 87 per cent over the last few years.”
Botha puts this academic success down to working closely with the school, the principal, the teachers and the school governing body.
The members of the centre are predominantly ex-students. In a small room that has just recently been painted bright red, sits one such individual. Martin Bouwers runs a podcast that is streamed live weekly. He features local talent that gets heard in unlikely places. One ex-student, known as ‘Cosmic Sky’ wrote a song that was featured on a podcast. This song, in turn was heard in Russia by DJ Vegas who asked permission to use it. As such, ‘Cosmic Sky’ has since been signed to one of the biggest house labels in South Africa. He has recently returned to the centre to find out how he can give back to the community.
Botha said one of the best aspects of the centre is that it is a central point for the community to work together to improve the lives of their students.
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