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Sophie’s Diary – July 18, 2017
Today is Nelson Mandela Day! We celebrated today to honor the late Nelson Mandela who was the first Democratically elected president of a Free South Africa and fought for social justice for 67 years.
We started today by taking the opportunity to meet with Anele Nosipho Ngcobo again, who we gave a scholarship to last summer. She is studying for her teaching degree in early childhood development, which will take four years to complete. She hopes to teach 9-14-year old’s once she has completed her studies. She attends the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Durban.
She is the first of her 5 brothers and sisters to study at University. Before she received her scholarship, she worked at a nursing home near her house which is in a traditional South African village. Her father Linos who has been a Partex Haley employee for 30 years, wanted to help support his daughter during her studies. He supports for her food and living costs. She lives close to the school and rooms with two other girls. One is from Durban, and the other girl is from her home town and studying to become a teacher as well. Anele and her roommate are the only two people from their home village to attend University.
Anele studies very hard as she can usually be found at the library. On the weekends, she goes home to help her family and parents, goes to the beach, or studies in the library. She seems very committed and engaged. Her hard work really shows after she showed me her marks from the previous semester where she took the following courses; Teaching English, Environmental education, and History and Teaching geography in South Africa. She scored 78% overall which is great!
Anele and her father expressed their gratitude to us many times and said that without our support, she would have never had the chance to go to school. Anele thanks god, her parents and us for this wonderful opportunity. We are so happy and proud of her progress and wish her the best of luck in her next semester. She will be taking the following courses; Guidance/counselling and life skills development, Language through an African, Theory framework in education, African language and culture in practice and The learning child.
We see a very bright future for Anele and wish her luck in her ongoing studies and to one day give back to her country by educating more South African children! Keep up the great work Anele!
Sophie Lööf
Lööf Foundation Chairman and Founder
