Schools 4 Schools South Africa Team Blog

Training on GOLD and our S4S Partner-schools

In the week just passed the team did a great deal of Schools 4 Schools training with the amazing Gina (2009 Schools 4 Schools member). Gina spoke to us about the GOLD program which we are funding at our partner-schools in KwaZulu Natal.

So….What is GOLD?!

Gold is an amazing program which is enabling a generation of young African leaders to confront the root issues of the HIV and AIDS pandemic through uplifting their communities and imparting vision and purpose to present and future generations. Basically GOLD runs a peer education program at high schools to mobilize influential teenage leaders to be positive role models and agents of change in their schools and communities.  See the image below which illustrates the roles of GOLD Peer Educators…

Diagram illustrating the role of peer educators. This image was extracted from the GOLD Annual Report 2008

GOLD runs at various schools through implementing organizations who provide facilitators for the program. We are working with 4 of these implementing organizations, which facilitate the GOLD program at the 11 schools we are working with. Basically, the facilitators visit their schools on a weekly basis to run the program with the Peer Educators.

See the diagram below, and this may make more sense!

After some intensive training on GOLD, Gina took us on a drive out to the schools listed above which are located in the Valley of 1000 Hills, Umlazi , South Coast and Pietermaritzberg. It was extremely exciting to see the schools that I had heard so much about in Australia!

This is the view from outside Sidelile High School which is located on the South Coast, KwaZulu Natal. Photo by Emily.

Landscape surrounding the Sethani schools in the Valley

Last Tuesday I was also able to meet with the Olive Leaf Foundation which is the Implementing Organization I am working with.  They run GOLD at Sidelile, Siyabonga, Swelihle, Mcothoyi and Qhilika. The facilators who run the GOLD program at the schools were all there. They were really inspirational and shared many stories with us about the fantastic work they do with the peer educators at their schools. Currently the facilitators are conducting interviews to select peer educators for 2010.

Stay posted for updates on the schools and our activities over here!