An update from Mark and Laura Albertyn – Second Term 2014

The end of the 2nd term has come! It is always very full with all the winter term sports and clubs that can make it incredibly demanding on the students, as well as writing their mock exams. We are always so impressed with how they cope with the demands of this term and how they have had to adjust to so much – especially our Lower Sixth Students.

What the term held for our students?

  • Ruvimbo went on the Music Tour to Bulawayo as part of the Chior and enjoyed various performances and even a trip to Matopos.
  • Again for the 3rd year running – 7 of our Upper Sixth students travelled to South Africa for the 50th Science Olympiad Focus Week and Prize Giving Ceremony from 7-11 July. They were among the top 100 winners out of 3000 students who participated from South Africa, Lesotho, Zimabwe and Namibia. Tinashe Marera came 1st in the Science Paper and won an iPad and Joseph Nyajina came 2nd and won a laptop. This is an incredible opportunity for our students who have never left the borders of Zimbabwe and we love the depth this adds to them!
  • Makomborero has had its first promotional video made and filming took place in the last week of the term, mainly based at Hellenic. We are excited to see how the little film turns out. This was commissioned by Makomborero in the UK.
  • St Georges and Hellenic Lower sixth had their leadership camps this term and they are always such a brilliant opportunity for our Lower Sixth students to integrate better into the Sixth Form and build deeper relationships. They all love this opportunity.
  • Prince has flown in the debate society at St Georges this term and has won a few awards acknowledging his talent in public speaking.
  • Joseph Mahiya, Lazarus Mtake, Takudzwa, Rufaro,, Tinashe, Nicola, Ntombi – Made it to final round of Old Mutual Maths Olympiad.
  • Our current students continue to excel in the Academics at the schools they are at and we are so proud of all their accomplishments.

Past students

  • Mark and I attended the USAP graduation, where 2 of our past internal students – Lisa and Tari and 2 of our external students – Orwell and Chiedza were graduating. It is always a very inspiring event filled with such hope for the future of these young people.
  • We have been blown away by the scholarships that our students keep receiving – 3 of our pioneer students were granted scholarships for this August – Rodwell (pioneer student) – full scholarship to Brunei to study Engineering., Mike Muponda (another pioneer student) University of West Virginia and Tinashe Rwodzi Computer Science at AU University in Mutare, as well as those who received scholarships last year.
  • It has also been great to receive our Pioneer students results for their 1st year at University and see them prepare to start the 2nd year this week.
  • Our external students are all doing well!
  • Our class of 2013 have also achieved some outstanding scholarships and places at our local universities. We are so proud of all of them. It is always so exciting compiling this list and seeing where are students are going to be and what they will be studying. We had such a lovely farewell dinner for those who are leaving the country.
    1. Pamela Saidoni (UZ, Zimbabwe – Electrical Engineering) – on a full Joshua Nkomo Scholarship
    2. Taringana Guranungo (Dartmouth University, USA – Engineering Science) – on a full scholarship
    3. Blessing Musungate (Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey – Computer Engineering) – on a full scholarship
    4. Lisa Luka (Wellesley College, USA – Neuro Science & PreMed) – on a full scholarship
    5. Tinotenda Makuvire (McGill University, Canada – Electrical Engineering) – on a full scholarship
    6. Nyasha Katemauswa (waiting for response)
    7. Collen Gondo (waiting for response)
    8. Philip Mukuze (Shandong University, China – MBBS Medicine) – on a full scholarship

Fundraising
Matthew Xenakis took part in the Half Two Oceans 21km run in Cape Town and raised $300 for Makomborero. We were so grateful to him for this. Matthew is a Hellenic student.

Peter’s commute in the UK happened again for the 4th year in a row!! Thank you so much to Stuart Campbell for organising this for us and for all the Sixth Formers at Sheffield High that walked to school and raised money for Makomboero. We hear the weather was not the best this year!

We had so many wonderful people running for us in the London 10km – a total of 40 people! Thank you Acturis and all the other individuals who ran for us. We so so appreciate it.

BlackboardPainting

Giving back!
As we continue to encourage our students to give back we had the privilege of visiting 4 rural schools and painting their black boards. This is such a great way to impact a school at not a huge lay out for us. It is incredible what freshly painted boards can do to impact a teacher and the whole class! It was wonderful to have past, present and external students join us for this. Sadly our annual Revision Schools were not approved by ministry this year.

We were very excited to be able to donate our 1st Makomboreo Zimbabwe Bin – which we have chained to a tree. Harare has a terrible litter problem since the country has been struggling and our hope is that we can slowly bring back the passion for a clean and neat city!

We would like to welcome Carnaud Metalbox as our latest local sponsor. Your belief in us and what we do is so appreciated.

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