Matlala Sefale, Grade 12
UWCSA (Waterford)
Mpaka Peers is Waterford’s student-led organisation whose focus for a lot of years has been assisting residents of Mpaka Refugee Camp with academic support and donations. These donations range from time and skills to books and seedlings.
I joined the organisation in January 2019, when I first started going to Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA. What attracted me to it was the organisation’s need for members who are willing and able to tutor the youth of Mpaka and my interest in using my skills and sharing my knowledge for a good cause. I became one of very few members of the Mpaka Peers Math and Science Tutoring Committee.
Mpaka Peers makes a couple of trips to the Camp every school term, and sometimes we organise for the youth from the Camp to visit the Waterford campus for regular tutoring sessions and bonding between them and Waterford students over sports and creative activities.
The first time I went to the refugee camp, my heart was warmed by the excitement on the children’s faces as they ran towards our school bus to welcome us; an excitement they kept until we said our goodbyes. Every other time I visited the Camp, it was as if the excitement grew as if they kept refuelling it.
Planting the seedlings we brought with us in the Camp’s garden under the scorching summer’s sun was fun for the first few minutes while we were energetic, but draining over a couple of hours. Tutoring never got old or boring. Hence I always spent most of the visits in the library teaching Algebra or Quantum Physics. To take a break, I would join the Sports and Entertainment Committee on the playground to have fun with the younger children.
It has been fun and rewarding being a member of Mpaka Peers and sharing my time and skills with the Mpaka youth who have become great friends of mine. However, it was not all smooth gliding. One of the biggest challenges I faced while doing it was the communication barrier between me and some of the people I was tutoring. Some of them came from Francophone African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the only international language they spoke and understood fully was French. With my basic conversational knowledge of French, it was difficult to delve into academic discussions even with the help of a French-speaking Waterford student to translate. However, the tutoring experience, in general, made me significantly more patient when sharing my knowledge with others. It made me more aware of the learning differences that we have as people, and it made it easier for me to pick up on a suitable style and pace to use when tutoring different people.
The experience of being a member of Mpaka Peers and the conversations I had with my friends from the Camp made me more aware of my socioeconomic privilege - something I had never thought I had. The privilege to reside in my home country and have a fairly peaceful upbringing without being on the run with my family, seeking refuge somewhere across the continent from our home, and not being separated from my childhood friends.
The youth’s excitement for the new books we brought for them from our school each time we visited has made me appreciate the power of books more, and my privilege of being in a school where I have access to an array of them, thus strengthening my passion for reading.
What I have come out of these experiences clutching onto is a deeper appreciation for the stories of people’s lives - their differences and the diversity of their similarities. Even though my life is different from those of my peers at Mpaka and theirs are not exactly the same as each other’s, we found some subtle details in common, and that might have been how our friendships developed.
I joined the organisation in January 2019, when I first started going to Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA. What attracted me to it was the organisation’s need for members who are willing and able to tutor the youth of Mpaka and my interest in using my skills and sharing my knowledge for a good cause. I became one of very few members of the Mpaka Peers Math and Science Tutoring Committee.
Mpaka Peers makes a couple of trips to the Camp every school term, and sometimes we organise for the youth from the Camp to visit the Waterford campus for regular tutoring sessions and bonding between them and Waterford students over sports and creative activities.
The first time I went to the refugee camp, my heart was warmed by the excitement on the children’s faces as they ran towards our school bus to welcome us; an excitement they kept until we said our goodbyes. Every other time I visited the Camp, it was as if the excitement grew as if they kept refuelling it.
Planting the seedlings we brought with us in the Camp’s garden under the scorching summer’s sun was fun for the first few minutes while we were energetic, but draining over a couple of hours. Tutoring never got old or boring. Hence I always spent most of the visits in the library teaching Algebra or Quantum Physics. To take a break, I would join the Sports and Entertainment Committee on the playground to have fun with the younger children.
It has been fun and rewarding being a member of Mpaka Peers and sharing my time and skills with the Mpaka youth who have become great friends of mine. However, it was not all smooth gliding. One of the biggest challenges I faced while doing it was the communication barrier between me and some of the people I was tutoring. Some of them came from Francophone African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the only international language they spoke and understood fully was French. With my basic conversational knowledge of French, it was difficult to delve into academic discussions even with the help of a French-speaking Waterford student to translate. However, the tutoring experience, in general, made me significantly more patient when sharing my knowledge with others. It made me more aware of the learning differences that we have as people, and it made it easier for me to pick up on a suitable style and pace to use when tutoring different people.
The experience of being a member of Mpaka Peers and the conversations I had with my friends from the Camp made me more aware of my socioeconomic privilege - something I had never thought I had. The privilege to reside in my home country and have a fairly peaceful upbringing without being on the run with my family, seeking refuge somewhere across the continent from our home, and not being separated from my childhood friends.
The youth’s excitement for the new books we brought for them from our school each time we visited has made me appreciate the power of books more, and my privilege of being in a school where I have access to an array of them, thus strengthening my passion for reading.
What I have come out of these experiences clutching onto is a deeper appreciation for the stories of people’s lives - their differences and the diversity of their similarities. Even though my life is different from those of my peers at Mpaka and theirs are not exactly the same as each other’s, we found some subtle details in common, and that might have been how our friendships developed.
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