It was called the Mehozetu Summer School (Mehozetu meaning 'our future') and it ran for two weeks for teenagers. Rundu has limited things to do when the schools break up and, as with anywhere, young people with nothing to do can lead to them getting into trouble. The motivation behind the summer school was to give them somewhere to go and have something to concentrate on whilst being educated and learning new skills. Local volunteers from different youth organisations around the region were invited to help and we had a team of dedicated people. On the registration about 5 children signed up and so a last minute announcement on the radio was in order triggering our phones to be ringing every few minutes. The next day we had over 40 teenagers turn up. Throughout the week more wanted to join.
Activities on offer were sports, arts & crafts, drugs & alcohol abuse workshops, confidence building, drama and singing. Also ice breakers and team games made an appearance. I was one of the volunteers in charge of sports. In this we offered Volleyball and Football. Football is huge here, everyone supports a premiership team and are always shocked to hear I don't support one. Often football is on the TV whenever I enter a house, even Christmas day the boys in my host home watched a repeat of Man Utd vs. Man City. So this often became the focus of the workshop.
Throughout all the activities the children showed enthusiasm and most turned up every day. Shady, Mervin and Hendrick (some of my host brothers) would ask me every day what activity they were doing the next day.
On the final day the children got certificates. A mother came in to collect one young boys certificate as he was ill and apparently crying his eyes out because he was missing the last day. Some of the teens made it apparent that they had had few people ever believe in them and encourage their skills, however the summer school did this for them. Groups of children were cheering about "completing the Mehozetu Summer School".
The local volunteers hope to continue doing such projects in the future for the school children and have already started looking into getting funding and permission for it.
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