Rhodes students having fun with primary school kids at the jumping catle.
We were covering the SRC Community Engagement Week. An initiative organised by the SRC to get Rhodes students involved with the Grahamstown community at large, which took place from the 16th to the 20th of March. The human chain was the first event to kick off the week. Residents and primary and high school learners from all over Grahamstown came to link hands with Rhodes students as a sign of unity. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Galela Amanzi relaunch took place in the location as well as other numerous displays at the library quad. On Thursday there were displays at the library and about 43 departments were invited to take part, but only three departments honoured the invitation, but it wasn’t a big problem because the bring a learner to Rhodes project was a huge success. For this initiative, students from Drostdy Hall and Kimberly Hall were shadowed by grade 11 learners to lectures, tutorials and practicals. Friday was the final day, on this day, the SRC organised a “community in unity fun day”. On this day, primary school kids came to have fun with Rhodes students; they played soccer, played on the jumping castle, learnt how to play drums and did a bit of face and t-shirt painting. The initiative was very successful judging at the turnout of students who were willing to help out and the media coverage it got. The event is not that popular within the Grahamstown community and quite relevant to Rhodes university students, therefore it was covered only by the student newspapers like Activate and Oppidan Press and Rhodos, a Rhodes staff newsletter that circulates every month and therefore we were the only broadcast journalists covering the story. The reason why we covered the story was the fact that, the story had never been done and was quite relevant to Rhodes students. The project was advertised on the Rhodes student homepage, Studentzone and the first event of the week was featured on the Oppidan Press blog.