ONE Soweto pupil starts an amazing adventure tomorrow when he flies to Cape Town, and will later end up in India!
Phila Dhlamini, a 15-year-old pupil at Emshukantambo Secondary School, in Pimville, flies to India in July to meet other pupils from all over the world.
He is meeting with other pupils from Mzansi in Cape Town for a brief about their upcoming trip.
From 2 to 22 July, the pupils will gather to discuss problems they all share and find solutions through each others’ knowledge, history and cultures.
The aim of the tour is to encourage leadership. It is arranged by 360 +, an organisation that provides learning opportunities to high school pupils through travel.
The 360 + Leadership Collective and R2Urban programmes target pupils from communities who otherwise are not offered access to such opportunities.
Leadership Collective started in 2015 as a programme that fully funds study-abroad opportunities for US high school pupils.
The programme has grown to fly pupils from India and other countries to the rest of the world.
R2Urban provides rural pupils in India with exposure to urban environments to help them understand their vast and ancient country by comparing similarities and differences to other countries and cultures.
The partnered programmes reached Nepal in east Asia and South Africa last year.
The focus of the programme is to develop global unity by using learning and management technology to increase engagement, education outcomes.
Every year, the collective focuses on a different theme and the two fundamental ideas will always be global connectivity and leadership. The theme for this year is Youth Citizenship.
The theme encourages youth to put their plans into action. It’s not good to talk and make decisions about how to deal with problems when no one acts on them.
The world needs people who can present a vision and make that vision real.
We all need active and powerful citizens with the confidence and skills to change the world.
Pule Hlahane, an English teacher at Emshukantambo, said Phila is a brilliant pupil.
“He’s extremely intelligent, he should be in grade 12, but this is not only about Phila. I call on all pupils in Mzansi to take their education seriously because education opens up other opportunities.”
