AwareYet?

“The kids call us ma’am which is so funny” laughs Antje Hering and Rieke Heitmueller, both students who recently finished their schooling in Germany, before deciding on a path of volunteering as a fruitful avenue.

Settling on South Africa as their preferred choice of destination, Hering and Heitmueller were allocated into the Awarenet project in the Joza community, and have since been assisting head Awarenet coordinator Terri-Lynn Penny with digital education lessons at Awarenet schools in area.

The plight students have with regards to both the language barrier and their digital inability during Awarenet classes was one duly noted by the volunteers. “Some of them [students], you have to work with very patiently” says Hering. Hering explains that students’ misapprehension during lessons would consequently just repeat the question in their answers space.

Awarenet does attempt to address problems regarding the lack of English literacy and digital skills of their students, however, poor internet reception within the Joza community remains an issue which hinders student progress. “Some computers don’t always connect to Awarenet” states Rieke, “we try it, it doesn’t work, so then we don’t have a session” she explains.

Voluntary assistance, locally or internationally, is thus enthusiastically welcomed by the Awarenet organisation and Antje and Rieke’s helping hands is one offer which has thus far proven to be both helpful to Awarenet and self- fulfilling for the girls. “Our relationship with the students is good. Last week they all just wanted us to take their photos” remarks Antje.

When asked about the most substantial difference noted when coming to South Africa, Antje pointed to the poverty divide between the poor and rich classes in the Eastern Cape as an evidential difference in comparison to her home country. “In Germany we don’t have that. The people who don’t work in Germany get money from government so the poverty in Germany is not as extreme as here in South Africa".

In a developing South Africa, Non- governmental programmes such as Awarenet are essential in bridging the gaps in our countries development. To lend a hand and depart a skill has the ability to bring change into someone’s life and make a difference in the society we live in.

Sporting her running shoes and track pants, one might assume that Terri-Lynn Penney is darting off to run a five-mile race. However, her fitness gear and hurried conduct is just reflective of her athletic mind-set, which aids her ability to juggle co-ordinating Awarenet computer literacy programme in 12 underprivileged schools in the Joza area.

Her attire is just the outpouring of her passion for the running sport, and her petite structure seems to be designed for swiftness. Due to the wavering financial stability regarding a career in running, Terri began to seek employment beyond the sports field, and this brought her under the wing of the Village Scribe organisation whose purpose is to improve literacy skills amongst the underprivileged youth, through computer literacy.

Terri now serves as head co-ordinator for the Awarenet programme, enthusiastically giving “110 percent to her work” she proudly states. Granting Terri’s found passion for community involvement did not come as naturally as her love for running. What she got from her job, in helping to nurture the education of young adults, was more than she bargained for.

“Before Awarenet I never bothered much with the community around me,” Terri sincerely commented, “Giving back to the community is the biggest thing you can do with your life.” Terri did not bargain on finding a job that would provide both financial and personal enrichment, and that is exactly what her job gave her. “The job title itself has changed me as a person, it’s made me realise how much need there is out there, not just in computer literacy.” She remarks.

Terri’s love for running and community involvement has led to her development of a running club for underprivileged runners in the Joza community. The running club trains and motivates promising athletes and is an act of selflessness as well as an enrichment of the lives of others.

Awarenet is a modern, interactive education and communication software featuring social networking and collaborative content creation, which means learners from one or several schools can work together on regular school projects and communicate nationwide and internationally. With their usernames and passwords, learners from different schools can log on to the Awarenet website to share multimedia content with each other. The software allows participants to comment on each other’s content and to email or chat with each other.

Awarenet started as a branch-off of the Village Scribe Association, which was headed up by Anna and Ron Wertlen in 2010, as a way of creating jobs, decreasing the technological divide and educating students in underprivileged schools.

Terri-lynn has been working as Awarenet’s Head Community Coordinator since September 2011. “The education system in the EC is under-skilled and overburdened and desperately needs our technical help,” said Terri-lynn, emphasising the importance of such programs in the province. Working with a number of schools in Grahamtown, she has weekly scheduled visits to mentor learners in generating Awarenet content.

Awarenet aims to help educate through the use of technology, thus increasing both computer literacy skills and basic educational skills such as English competence. Through this, Awarenet hopes that individuals will be better prepared for the future. It also aims to bring technology into underprivileged areas, in order to increase knowledge of the growing technological world.

Awarenet believes it is important to encourage students to use social networking software to meet others and to organise life and work, i.e. using social networks is not only a tool, but part of their education. According to its website, Awarenet “has the potential to bring learners all over the world together in a collaborative learning experience that can grow flexibly as more learners join”. Used efficiently Awarenet could be a solution to poor levels of computer literacy in the country and the world.

It is rare that every school student is capable of grasping the work in their set curriculum, within the established schooling hours. After school programmes, such as Awarenet, therefore fills an essential need amongst learners for their educational skills to be developed and nurtured.

Teaching staff at Awarenet schools have given recognition to the Awarenet programme for vastly improving learners English language skills, as well as their digital computing skills. Unfortunately the programme which runs amongst 35 different schools situated in the Eastern Cape, reaches a fraction of students in the province and is therefore only capable of providing a select few with the opportunity to improve their educational future.

Every child deserves a helping hand and encouragement when it comes to their education, and with your help, Awarenet could extend the scope of their influencing amongst schools, and improve educational development in the Eastern Cape as a whole.

Those willing to contribute their time and services, to making a difference in the lives of others, are thus encouraged by Awarenet to participate in being of assistance in the educational development of our youth. Whether it be contributing time to voluntary services with Awarenet; individually volunteering to teach a skill to a students in your community or a financial contribution to the expansion of the Awarenet project. All participation would be favourably received.

As a drop of water can cause a pond to ripple, in the same sense a little contribution can cause waves of change.

Who do I contact to help out?

To make a contribution or volunteer your services to the Awarenet organisation, contact project head Dr Anna Wertlen via email at:

anna@villagescribe.org

Rhodes University students wanting to volunteer can contact the Rhodes University engagement office at:

n.mngomezulu@ru.ac.za
or
svp@ru.ac.za

The Designers in this particular AwareNet group have designed a number of posters from the blogs that the grade 9 students have done in Class. some of these blogs include 'My Digital Life', or 'My Opinions and 'My Futures'. These posters are up in the attached files section of this Project :)

Our role in the Awarenet classes run by Terri Penney of the Village Scribe association was chiefly concerned with assisting the children in the general use of the software and on occasion conducting a lesson for the class. The lesson we arranged was based on the problems we had identified in our previous sessions with the class. It had been noted that the students tend to struggle particularly with tense and more complicated vocabulary, which while challenging is of a level they should be able to match at age 15.

The Awarenet software gives the students an opportunity to practice their English in a fun and interactive way, while gaining valuable computer literacy skills. However, while the lessons often exercise the English skills of the learner, it is often challenging for the teacher (in this case Terri Penney) to address all the spelling and grammatical errors for every student in every lesson.

The presence of our group therefore played a pivotal role in addressing these issues, which in turn suggests that a student volunteer program would be significantly valuable, particularly if instituted on a large scale, so as to reach all the schools in the Eastern Cape area.

The Bruce from the third year Rhodes journalism group took some random photos of C.M Vellem Learners