A Talk at Protea South Primary School

     This school is located in my neighbourhood(Protea South). It is a township public school. Also, this is the school that my niece(Thato) and nephew(Tumelo) attend.

   On Friday yours truly went there to give a talk on gender-based violence during their morning assembly. This talk was a  continuation of the theme of opposing all forms of violence against women and children, that started with the launch of the 'Stop Rape Campaign' in all schools on 1st March.

   Because I normally give such talks in English, the challenge at Protea South was how to speak in such a way that even Grade R learners( 6 to 7 year olds) would understand my message. At this level - primary school - the learners are not that proficient in English. I didn't want to use Sesotho(my home language) because with 11 official languages here in South Africa, I did not want to come across as preferring my vernacular over the 8 others. In the end I decided to rope in a translator. She was going to translate my talk into Isizulu, which is the most widely spoken vernacular language in the country.

   But as Murphy would have it, on the day when I most needed a her, my translator got stuck in traffic and never made it on time. I was left no choice but to soldier on by myself. I stuck to English mostly, but here and there I threw in a bit of Isizulu and Sesotho. And I was pleasantly surprised to notice that most of the learners did understand me. This was indicated by how well the Grade R and Grade 1 section, on my right at this assembly, responded to my prompts for feedback during the talk. Later still, when I met some of these Grade R's and 1's on the streets and asked them what my talk was all about, they answered,"Your talk was about saying NO". And it was.  The talk title was 'Saying NO to violence against women and children'.

  With that, this talk was a success indeed, ladies and gentlemen.

                                                 Some Thank You's  

- Ntate Mabaso(the Principal) - for the permission to do the talk.

- Ma'am Pearl - for distilling my message of 'No to Violence' so eloquently in vernacular immediately after my talk, and for doing so again later in class(so my niece tells me)."Much appreciated, Ma'am."

- Sis Thembi and Sis Judy(SGB members) - for a positive feedback on the talk.

- Ma'am Radebe, Ntate Mojapelo, & Ntate Matjila( both teachers and SGB members) - for commenting on the content of the talk afterwards.  

                             

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