The e’Bosch Heritage Project in conjunction with various stakeholders and organisations will host its “Let them Thrive” school holiday programme at 46 schools around the 14 dorpies of Stellenbosch from Monday 27 June until Friday 15 July.
The aim of the programme is to provide healthy, holistic and constructive activities for children between six and 18 during the school holiday, as a preventative measure for risk behaviours among youth and help children to thrive.
The activities will include recreation and sport, arts and crafts, music and movement, drama, adventure, spirituality and a community project. Each dorpie will have a specifically designed holiday programme based on the community’s specific needs and the available resources.
Youths will engage in the following developmental activities:
During the first week, participants will develop the storyline and in the second week the participants will create decor for the concert. During the third week, they will practice drama to develop their skills for the final performance in the form of a group presentation at a camp fire concert.
The Youth Festival, in partnership with local churches on the last Sunday of the school holiday, is an opportunity to invite the school-going children and youths to celebrate at a religious institution. With this activity the organisers hope to instil positive identity, social competencies, positive values and a commitment to learning.
Each dorpie will have at least one participating congregation as partner in the school holiday programme.
Once a week, each of the local groups will embark on a particular project to reach out to a stakeholder group in their community that needs recognition and support in the role they play in the community. The outreach will be to a local old-age home or other institution of community care. The overall objective is to recognise the roles of the facilities or organisations.
The recreation and sport programme will equip the participating school-going children and youth with the skills of character development, while they are playing games. A programme to develop teams over the duration of the school holiday will culminate in one or more tournaments towards the end of the third week, where the teams will face off against each other.
The music and movement (dance for pleasure) programme will develop the participating school-going children and youth with skills in small group performances. The programme will buildup during the three weeks into a Winter Wonderland Concert, where teams from all the dorpies will exhibit and entertain each other and the broader community during a concert finale.
Specific training will be provided to build music instruments from recycling material for use in the final concert.
Young people reaching the age of 12 years develop a physiological need for risk taking. The programme during the holiday will focus on planning and executing adventure related activities where the skills of planning, decision-making, identity and positive values are used in practice in the run-up and actual adventure activities.
The art and craft activities for school-going children and youth gives all participants the chance to express themselves in creative ways. Artifacts will be made by participants to be used as props and decor during the Winter Wonderland Concert and the drama performances.
