Back to school campaign brings the community of Diepsloot together

19 February 2018

 

Jubilations, song and dance filled the atmosphere at the primary school in Diepsloot during the Back to School campaign, which celebrated, honoured and inspired academic excellence.

 

At least more than 1 500 people – amongst them learners, proud parents, members of the school governing body and officials, attended the Back to School campaign at Basa Diepsloot Primary School. At this event the best academic performers were recognized and school shoes given to deserving learners, on Friday (16 February 2018). The Back to School campaign is the brain-child of Councillor Vasco da Gama, the Speaker of Council in the City of Johannesburg.

The Back to School campaign forms part of the broader “A Re Sebetseng” clean-up campaign which is championed by the Executive Mayor, Cllr. Herman Mashaba.

The ultimate goal of this initiative is to encourage communities to take ownership of their environment by ensuring that they participate in the cleaning of their immediate areas. In order to encourage the school’s participation in the clean-up, Cllr. Da Gama visits schools – particularly in disadvantaged areas, to inculcate the spirit of caring for the environment. Cllr. Da Gama had encouraging words for learners as he congratulated the school’s best academic performers including the last year’s overall top learner, Precious Mape.

“The purpose of why we are here today is to ensure that we restore equality and dignity of all learners. By recognizing some of the best performing learners in front of you, has to be an encouragement to all learners to do more,” said Cllr. Da Gama.

The school’s principal, Mr. Komane thanked the City and encouraged learners to focus on education in order to break the cycle of poverty.

“Education is the most important tool to liberate our learners from poverty,” said Mr. Komane.

Cllr. Da Gama said it was very important for learners to participate in regular clean-ups in and around their school, as the clean environment would help them to develop their self-esteem.

The Speaker also encouraged learners to compete with other schools in a clean-up competition. The City’s Student Council has been tasked with championing the clean-up project in schools across the City. As an incentive for this campaign, the Speaker will visit schools and the cleanest school will ultimately receive a trophy.

The shoe drive on Friday was the second leg of the Back to School Campaign. This follows after a successful “Schools Cleanliness Campaign” last week. This saw the Speaker and officials taking part in the clean-up campaign focusing on two schools in Dieplsloot including Basa Diepsloot Primary School.

Cllr. Da Gama is passionate about the poor, and as a result has chosen the Mayoral priority number 2: Run a responsive pro-poor government as part of his community outreach programmes.

“Some of the challenges facing our public schools in Johannesburg include amongst others: poverty, lack of school uniforms, and lack of educational equipment, dilapidated school infrastructure, children in need of social work and psychological services and generally none-conducive environment for learning in our schooling system,” says Cllr. Da Gama.

Various stakeholders including the Department of Health, Social Development, Non-governmental organisations, private sector, Home Affairs and the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) were invited to set up information desks at the school. The school celebrated their achievement with traditional dance groups performing and the JMPD band also kept the guests entertained.