As matriculants brace themselves for their final exams, local non profit, Hope for the Future is stepping up to provide essential support to vulnerable learners by hosting their fourth annual Kings and Queens breakfast.
Every morning ahead of their examinations, they aim to feed 190 matriculants in need, including those who have been attending night school. This year the initiative is earmarked for Modderdam High School in Bonteheuwel.
In the Western Cape, 75 647 candidates will write the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams for 2024.
The exams kick off on Monday, October 21, 2024 and will end on Wednesday November 27.
Hope for the Future founder, Vanessa Nelson said: “This is a special time. It is the culmination of 12 years of schooling, in some cases 13.”
“A lot of our learners come from poverty stricken homes where they do not have the privilege of breakfast in the morning. However we as Hope for the Future want to ensure that for their final exams, we recognise this moment, by giving them a breakfast fitting queens and kings. They should not take exams with empty stomachs. We want them to be fed and happy and to allow them to focus on the exams.”
According to the UCT Children’s Institute, 12% of children in South Africa (nearly 2.6 million) lived in households that reported child hunger in 2022.
To change the face of these glaring statistics, the Hope for the Future team go all out to give learners a memorable experience they will never forget. They prepare a buffet spread filled with the very best from a variety of cereals, eggs, fruit, French toast, muffins or pancakes, chicken wraps, yoghurt, tea and coffee etc.
Nelson added that the initiative was also about creating an encouraging and supportive environment for learners, “making sure that they come to school early for breakfast, they have something to look forward to”.
“The environment we create is for them to be relaxed, to calm the nerves before the exam. They get to have a conversation with their friends before the big moment, to take their mind of things,” she said.
The initiative now in its fourth years, started in 2020, when Nelson’s son was in matric and she wanted to do something special for him and his classmates.
The Hope for the Future team will host the matric breakfast from Monday October 21, until candidates write their last exam paper at the end of November. They are in desperate need of food and monetary donations. To assist, Nelson can be contacted on 076 073 6777.
Cape Times