Roedean School (SA) spearheads a community programme, The Roedean Academy which focuses on providing English, mathematics, accounting and physical science lessons to learners of Barnato Park High School.
This is a donor-funded initiative and has been running successfully since its inception in 2009.
The top learner for this year was Sibongile Chiumie. Fundraising manager at the school, Kate Lowings said, “We believe that she will do very well as she has an amazing work ethic and is extremely dedicated and focused on her studies.”
In a letter to Rosebank Killarney Gazette, Sibongile shared her hardships that she had overcome:
The major challenge that I faced as a matric student in 2018 was finding a place to do my school work and studying. I live in a flat in Yeoville and in this area, it gets too noisy for anyone to focus on their work especially at night because of the loud music playing from outside because of people that are always partying. As if that was not enough, my family shares the flat that we live in with four other people that we do not know. It has always been like this and this was a challenge because it was hard to focus with all the other people around in the same apartment, living their own lives.
Therefore, I took any opportunity that I could get to study somewhere else where I could focus. The library was very convenient and that is where I spent most of my time. Other than that, I had the same stress that every other matric student had and that is the piling up of work, going to school from Monday to Sunday some weeks and the stress about applying for university and how I will pay for my university fees next year. Thinking about this really depressed me and sometimes I felt like giving up.
I have always wanted to become a chartered accountant. I fell in love with the career when I met my mother’s employer who my mother worked for as a nanny on weekends so that she could get extra money to support our family. I was already convinced that it was what I wanted to do and I was ready to fight for my dream and that was the one thing that kept me going. There were some days that I would get bad marks for my exams because of everything that I was going through and that made me stress more about finals and next year but the passion that I had for my dream career kept me going.
And because of her hard work, Sibongile has been awarded a bursary from Bidvest Bank and she will be studying a BCom Accounting at the University of Pretoria next year.
Details: Roedean School SA 011 647 3200
Share your story of succeeding against any odds via email to naidines@caxton.co.za
Related Articles:
Matriculants and teachers from Roedean School celebrate fantastic results
Career guidance for the under-resourced courtesy of Roedean Academy
