South Africa Link

 (Click on the photo to see more photos of our link school in S. Africa)

Withernsea High School has been working with Mapenane Junior Secondary School - our partner school in Ga-Rankuwa near Pretoria, South Africa since November 2005. The school there does much magnificent work educating students aged 11-16 in a largely deprived area.

We were contacted by an ex-student of Withernsea High School who now works in South Africa not far from the school. Paul Harris was struck by the courageous work of local pensioners attempting to provide some free school meals to many of the students who, through poverty or losing one or both parents, were attempting to attend school on a very limited diet. Since November 2005 Withernsea High School has been raising funds to send £200 every two months to help finance the free school meals and the school is now able to provide a free meal to upwards of 70 students every school day.

Paul writes : "There are parents with no income and 6 children; there are grandparents bringing up children whose parents have died; there are many cases of only one person working in a family earning around £23 per week. Christmas presents are not even at the bottom of the priority list - they are not even given a thought at all. Your help (Withernsea High School) has enabled us to look after the children, feed them and help them regain their potential at school. I am told that all but one of the girls passed their exams recently and I am sure the boys will have done just as well. From a point where they were fainting in class or not even attending school due to lack of strength, I believe all involved in fund-raising should be very proud of their efforts. Thank you to all at Withernsea High School"

Two Geography teachers from Withernsea High School visited Mapenane School during the Easter holidays 2006. Ms. Lamping and Ms. Spamer took parcels of school equipment, school uniforms and blankets as part of their brief. But maybe more importantly made some valuable human contacts with the teachers, carers, pensioners and students of the school. They returned with letters from the students which Withernsea students have replied to and we continue to build the relationship between the two schools.

In May 2007 an additional £800 was raised by students and staff at Withernsea High School to provide much needed sports equipment for the school. The headteacher had requested this as a way of providing the youngsters in the area with something valuable to occupy their out-of-school time.

We look to develop the links further with a possible exchange visit by teachers between the two schools to see what further links we can create between our two communities.