Egolisquash Youth Empowerment Academic Support Programme
For most of our players, access to education is difficult due to family financial constraints, large families per household and parents who struggle to survive by doing odd jobs. Most of the family incomes are oriented to first needs such as food and shelter; and in most cases cannot afford the high cost of school fees and school materials, such as exercise books and texts.
Our Homework Support and Bursary programmes create a deep well of opportunities for the less privileged learners and creates a window of opportunity to realize their potential. Our aim is to offer a holistic experience to children and young people to prepare and motivate them to become confident and well-educated independent adults who can support their families and contribute to communities.
The Programme utilizes the voluntary support of University students who assist children from Grade 4 to Grade 12 on Wednesdays/ Thursdays/ Saturdays with assignments that focus on different content areas. Our Academic Support Interventions are run for approximately 30 minutes, normally by a teaching assistant, during our weekly or Saturday social squash sessions. They are either run on a one to one basis or in small groups of no more than 6. The sessions focus on specific areas of need and are delivered at a slower pace, with very practical hands on sessions. Our youths can learn at their own pace and, more importantly, remember what they have learned. The idea behind interventions, is that they fill the gaps in a child’s learning and allow them to return to class and keep up with the work being taught by their respective schools.
The Programme is managed by Bradd Lodge who is the Director of Egolisquash Youth Empowerment programme and works with a team of five educational managers to effectively run the programme:
- Clinton Ndebele
- Request Sinyandiwo
- Khanyile Sape
- Celeste Wapnick
- Nompumelelo Ndaba
Our programmes intervene at three critical phases in the educational journey:
- Grade 4-7 Primary School
- Grade 8-12 High School phase
- Post matric programme – Bridging Year and Tertiary Support – to prepare students to succeed in higher education and support them to succeed in their tertiary studies