Inkanyesi celebrated its 21st birthday last year, being founded with a first grade in 1988 as the first of the Waldorf schools established within the black communities of South Africa. At the time of its founding, the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa was reaching a peak, various political parties were beginning to form and Alexandra Township was an overcrowded and dangerous area.
A Kindergarten with 3 teachers was already working, and the first grade was started in the garage of one of the teachers. There were very few children, the only source of light and air was the door, which opened directly onto the street. So Theo Thorne, the teacher, placed a chair on the street so that anyone who wanted to watch what he was doing could do so.
Soon a site was acquired, first buildings built and in 1991, theses included the Baobab Community College, a centre to train teachers for the growing number of schools in these communities – Soweto, Madietane, Winterton, Irene and Inkanyesi itself.
Much has happened since then, the school has grown, but is still struggling financially and in finding its real place within the whole scope of South African Education.
A number of the teachers there were involved in the first part of the ‘90’s in planning and running the youth conferences that took place in South Africa at the time, culminating in the Ubuntu Conference of 1995, where we received some 300 international visitors as well.
We met with them to connect up once again and to see how to pick up the Connectivity idea here in Johannesburg. Further meetings were planned and everyone seemed very interested to join in the process in some way.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen