By Lindani Sifanele

My name is Lindani Sifanele, a final year BSc student at Rhodes University. Community Engagement at Rhodes University has allowed me to grow, learn and easily build relationships with other people. The way Rhodes University moulded me to be this young, enthusiastic man I am today makes me believe that within us, lies greatness. I give thanks to Rhodes for being a beacon of my growth. This institution's CE programme has groomed me in a way that sharpened my communication skills, critical thinking skills and compassion. I am grateful to Rhodes University community engagement (RUCE) for allowing me to grow and evolve into a better person in their space.  

During all my high school years at Mount Frere Senior Secondary School, I suffered the pain of my school not having enough textbooks. bet36体育投注_bet36体育在线—激情赢盈中√ three to five people had to share one textbook for the whole year. This introduced many deficits because it took a lot of work to access the textbook, since the people who shared stayed in very distant areas. When I joined community engagement (Nine-Tenths) for the first time in my life in 2022 at Makhanda, where I was mentoring two grade 12 students, I figured out that they have the same problem of insufficient textbooks and thus have to share. Their pain resonated with me since I also went through the same phase. Luckily, as a Golden Key International Honour Society member, I saw a scholarship (Humanitarian/Service Response award) advertised on the Golden Key page. This scholarship wanted applicants who demonstrated commitment to service and who would put forward the service that they are doing or the community programme they are part of, and how (if they won the scholarship) they would use the money to help the community programme and how many people would be supported by the scholarship money. I quickly applied for this scholarship, driven by the urge to alleviate my mentees' pain and all matriculants at the partner school. Luckily, by God's grace, I won the scholarship and subsequently donated the money to Nine-Tenths to use for making SD cards. These SD cards were loaded with all recent and relevant matric material and they serve as easy access textbooks and question papers to all the matriculants in the school.  

Being part of the community engagement programmes showed me that I am gradually getting closer to achieving my long-term goal of positively impacting my rural communities (Mount Ayliff and Mount Frere). I believe and hope that in the future, I can work with the Trevor Noah Foundation to improve the learning infrastructure at Mount Ayliff. Furthermore, I also wish to be a mentee of the Narachi Mentorship Programme; this internationally recognised consultancy will groom me to be the transformative leader I envision myself as.  

It is a pleasure and an honour to help where I can because it is said that wherever you go, leave a positive impact that the community will remember you by. 

Above all, I would like to thank Miss Sibulele Dalindyebo, a Rhodes University Student (student leader of Nine-Tenths in 2022), for writing a motivational letter for me for the Humanitarian/Service Response Award. All in all, lets be the change we want to see in our societies. RUCE planted a seed in me which I hope to build on and be at service to my South African youth, this will be a success because a lot of young souls realised their dreams through my initiative.