Kearsney's Imbizo

Mission

The Imbizo recognises that the Kearsney community consists of many cultural groups and that it is vital that every group be afforded the respect and dignity it deserves, to speak, to be heard and to be understood. In this way differences can be the springboard to a vibrant, caring and respectful environment in which every individual shares in the acceptance and development of all.

Vision

To enable the Kearsney community to meaningfully participate in an ever-changing global environment. Any boys in Grades 9 to 12 can apply to be on this committee. He would need to provide a brief motivation.

The committee:

•  has the teacher in charge present at all meetings;

•  is comprised of boys representing all cultural/racial/religious groups;

•  has the Head and Deputy Head of School on the committee;

•  elects a Chairman and Vice-chairman;

•  is represented on the KCC by the Chairman and Vice-chairman;

•  meets once a term.

The criteria for the Imbizo members are:

• Any boy from Grade 8 -11 who is not a prefect and not a member of Kearsney College Council
• Any boy who has the best interests and well-being of the College at heart
• Any boy who displays servant leadership as demonstrated in the diagram below:

The Imbizo’s objectives are to:

• Celebrate cultural diversity where all cultural groups feel the sense of belonging; where they have a voice, where their concerns are being listened to and addressed;
• Acknowledge that people from diverse cultures bring language skills, new ways of thinking, and creative solutions and negotiating skills to difficult problems.

The Imbizo covers topics such as the formulation of the Racism Policy and the talks at the Youth Day Celebrations. They were instrumental in driving the agenda of ‘GenerationWe’, which is a mentoring programme for learners in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, which assists high school puipils with university applications and Mathematics and English tutoring programmes. The Imbizo was also part of various social awareness campaigns and hosted a workshop on Gender Based Violence with other private schools. In addition to this, they were influential in amalgamating two hair policies into one which accommodates all race groups at the College