High school

Grade 8 aftacool club

We started a weekly Grade 8 club at our centre in 2020 to continue supporting our Aftacool learners in High School. In 2021 we also started a Grade 9 club and in 2022 we formed a partnership with Gold Youth that supports learners from Grade 9-12. Our Gr 8 club therefore serves as a bridge between Aftacool and the Gold Youth leadership programme. This means that a learner can enter the Aftacool programme in primary school and continue until grade 12 or even after that by joining our Youth Development Internships. This creates a pathway for learners to unlocking their potential and finding meaningful opportunities after successfully completing Grade 12.

Grade 8 is a difficult year for learners. They feel very vulnerable and unsure in their new environment. We want to support them and make sure that they continue to learn and thrive. Our after-school psychosocial support program for grade 8 learners is designed to provide a safe and supportive environment where learners can develop the skills and resources they need to succeed. By offering a range of activities and resources, the Gr.8 Club help learners build resilience, manage stress, and develop positive relationships with their peers and caregivers.

The Grade 8 club curriculum makes use of the Smart girl and boy curriculum and Career Launch provided by Boy and Girls Club SA and we also incorporate computer skills.

Gold youth leadership

Gold Youth has an audacious goal – to develop 10 million young African leaders with character and integrity to mobilise their generation with the knowledge, tools and support to reach their full potential, with concrete results in social behaviour change, education and job creation.

We are excited to join them in this goal as an implementation partner. Through the gold Peer Education Model, we are embedding peer leaders and their mentors into schools and communities, developing young people from being passive recipients of negative norms to proactive agents of positive change, who are empowering themselves and their peers to become the ethical and economically independent leaders of tomorrow.

How it works:

The programme provides a job creation opportunity as a Facilitator Intern for out-of-school youth. They are trained to train and mentor teenage leaders called Peer Educators. Facilitator Interns start as a Junior and move through 4 years of their internship until they are a Lead Facilitator Intern.

School-going youth begin the programme as Juniors (age 13-14), and move through 4 years until they graduate as Lead Peer Educators. Through the four-year relationships with Facilitator Interns, Peer Educators are taught to model positive decision making and educate their peers and younger children to make positive choices, strengthen their schoolwork and maximize their impact on their communities.

Programme participants receive resources containing all they need to engage successfully in the programme. Topics that are covered in the gold Curriculum fall into 6 modules of content:

• Leadership (including Work Readiness)
• Self-development
• Gender, Relationships and Rights
• Sexual and Reproductive Health
• Communication Skills
• Community Action

Friends and younger children positively impacted by the Peer Educators through role-modelling, Peer Educator-to-Peer education lessons and talk groups, advocacy messaging and community outreach projects.

The gold Youth alumni become part of the gold Grads community for life and are connected to various opportunities in:

• further education,
• workplace internships,
• entry-level jobs and
• entrepreneurship ventures.

Micro ‘business-in-a-box’ opportunities for gold Grads provide solutions and products to grassroots communities through enterprise development and youth job creation. The detail of these businesses, from distribution of solar powered products to mobile money and hydroponic food hubs, is available on request.

We at Boost are committed to the goal and dream of gold youth – to help build a generation that will choose to be the solution, to think differently; who will lead in every sector of society, counting the cost of true leadership.