On Friday, the 25th of April 2014 Dr Anna-Maria Wertlen, Terri – Lynn Penney, Antje Hering and Rieke Heitmüller arranged the second awarenet Open Day in the C.M Vellem Primary School for two hours in the afternoon, related to the international Girls in ICT day.
This initiative is backed by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Member States as an opportunity for girls and young women to get inspired about ICT.
Celebrated at the end of April every year, the Village Scribe Association members invited IT teachers and students from Samuel Ntsiko Primary School, S.D Adventist School and Archie Mbolekwa Public School in Grahamstown to get an introduction of the awarenet programme.
The idea of the awarenet Open Day was to promote the programme and to encourage the teachers to work together with awarenet. The students and teachers were introduced to the awarenet programme, the most important features and projects.
While the students’ explored awarenet and wrote blogs about the awarenet Open Day and their experiences in ICT, the teachers got an introduction about KhanLite.
As the awarenet Open Day was drawing to a close, the students were still busy writing blogs, poems and watching photos.

On the 25th and the 27th of March 2014, Antje Hering and Rieke Heitmueller visited the DSG (Diocesan school for girls) private school in Grahamstown for one hour per day for a LifePlayer outreach project.

The LifePlayer project is my first own awarenet project. I am working together with ten girls from the Victoria Girls’ High School and I am assisted by Antje Hering and supported by Sarah Hanton.
We already started this project at the end of January 2014 and had a few drama sessions together, before we start to prepare and record fairytales and fables onto the LifePlayer in the second school term.
The LifePlayer, produced by LifeLine Energy and supplied by the British Council, is a portable solar and wind-up radio and mp3 player.
At the end of the LifePlayer project, we will visit primary schools in the township in Grahamstown and will teach students in grade four to six in reading English. The Victoria Girls’ have to prepare the lessons by themselves and the students in the primary school can listen to the recorded LifePlayer stories while reading the same story.

At the beginning of February we started to cooperate with the DSG drama and English teacher, Chi Ingledew. She taught her students in drama and let them prepare nine German fairytales and African fables. She separated her 40 students into groups and we recorded their stories with a laptop in two days.

In the next weeks, we will edit and work on the recorded stories and I am looking forward to the further cooperation between the Diocesan Girls private school and the Victoria Girls’ High School.

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.

All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.

The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'

The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.

Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen, and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold, and snow began to fall.

The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do? Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me some food from that larder of yours!'

The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.

Now you must know that a Town Mouse once upon a time went on a visit to his cousin in the country. He was rough and ready, this cousin, but he loved his town friend and made him heartily welcome. Beans and bacon, cheese and bread, were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely. The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said:

"I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. When you have been in town a week you will wonder how you could ever have stood a country life."
No sooner said than done: the two mice set off for the town and arrived at the Town Mouse's residence late at night.

"You will want some refreshment after our long journey," said the polite Town Mouse, and took his friend into the grand dining-room. There they found the remains of a fine feast, and soon the two mice were eating up jellies and cakes and all that was nice. Suddenly they heard growling and barking.
"What is that?" said the Country Mouse.
"It is only the dogs of the house," answered the other.
"Only!" said the Country Mouse. "I do not like that music at my dinner." Just at that moment the door flew open, in came two huge mastiffs, and the two mice had to scamper down and run off.
"Good-bye, Cousin," said the Country Mouse,
"What! going so soon?" said the other.
"Yes," he replied; "Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear."'