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What fuels Diesel to help Alex from Morningside
Bryanston’s Explorers Friendship and Chat Group members met again on July 19, this time to hear the progress made by Dr Anthony Diesel in keeping children from Alexandra in school.
The focus of Diesel’s presentation to the group was on Southern Africa Partners SA (SnAPSA), and the non-profit company’s Keeping Kidz in School (KKiDZS) project.
“There’s a big problem at the moment with children that don’t complete matric. Their problems aren’t that they don’t want to go to school; it’s circumstances that often put them in a place where they can’t go to school,” Diesel explained. “They either don’t have transport money, or they don’t have the supportive parents at home – or the infrastructure at school to keep them there, and various other factors.”
Diesel talked about bunking patterns identified within some learners, and how SnAPSA works with schools to correct these behavioural patterns.
“What we do is identify learners with at-risk behaviour, who knit-one-slip-one, as I call it. In other words, they come to school on Tuesday, but not on Monday or Wednesday, until they come on Thursday, and then they’re off for the whole weekend again,” Diesel said. “We have a system where we work with teachers, as well as with two of my staff – a social worker, and a psychologist who work in Alex schools. We work in four schools in Alex at the moment. We identify them in that way, and also through behavioural problems within school. You’ll often have them acting out.”
A resident of Morningside, Diesel said he was spurred into action to start the school project in the Alexandra community because he realised that the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is 1.2km away from the first part of Alexandra.
“One of the reasons we do these talks is to spread the word on what the needs are close to us,” Diesel said. “People don’t realise that Alex is only 2km away from Sandton.”
“We’ve been working in these schools for three years, and we were finally able to add two extra youth advisors, coming in from this month,” Diesel said. “It’s been amazing seeing how they are positively influencing the children. They communicate with the children because they’re so young.”
Diesel described the project’s work done with the children towards trying to prevent dropouts while identifying social challenges. He identified issues affecting learners who identify as being part of the LGBTIQ+ community, as well as dealing with instances of bullying, particularly by children who are more assertive. Diesel also spoke about how some of the young people come to join the programme.
“There are children who identify within the community, and one of the problems we’re finding is that, with the support that we provide them at school, the children come, and talk to our social worker and psychologist,” said Diesel. “We have a Saturday group in Alex where we build self-empowerment with the children we work with, normally in groups of 15. They volunteer to join the group themselves, and we do six sessions with them wherein we look at GBV, self-esteem, future planning, and vocational issues.”
