Bicycles, Sanitary Pads and Matric Success Story for Bangani High School

The happy faces of learners reinforces World Vision South Africa’s commitment to education. A trio of initiatives: bicycles, sanitary pads and matric learner camps, made these happy faces possible.

Until 2015 Bangani High School in the Amazizi community had a poor record of matric results. Situated 60km from Bergville, at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains, Bangani High School falls under the Okhahlamba municipality.
Of the 380 learners enrolled each year, many face obstacles to maintaining regular attendance at school. Two major obstacles have been a lack of transport for many pupils and a lack of access to sanitary pads for girls, resulting in many of these girls missing at least a week of school each month.

In 2015 World Vision South Africa got involved.

To help alleviate the transport issues, 150 bicycles were donated to the school to assist those learners who had long distances to travel. Bangani High School was one of 11 schools benefiting from the Bicycle Project, BEEP.

In 2017 two further initiatives were instituted to invest in the education of these learners.

The first initiative was organising Siyabonga Mpungose, a motivational speaker from the radio station, Ukhozi FM, to engage with the students. He spoke to them about excellence, responsibility and taking ownership for their education. He motivated them to take their education to another level.

The second initiative was establishing the Matric Learner Camps to further equip learners to prepare for their matric examinations.

All the girl learners were given sanitary pads at the camp.

The Principal responded with much gratitude. ‘We as Bangani High School humble ourselves and praise World Vision for the positive gesture shown in our hour of need. We thank you so much. Our 2017 matriculation results have improved immensely from 45% in 2016 to 75% in 2017 and we couldn’t have done this without your generosity to the grade 12 camp.’

These initiatives have played a major role in not only motivating and equipping the pupils to succeed when it comes to their education, but in also giving them opportunities to achieve after school and to be role models to those younger than them in their community.