25 Apr 2017

 Step Up International, which is a Non-Governmental Organisation based in Molepolole, has embarked on its primary mandate of promoting educational enrichment to primary school going pupils.
Speaking in an interview with BOPA, the organisation founder Mr Mooketsi Maruping said for every individual to strive for success they needed education as a primary background.
 Therefore they have found it important to provide different subject lectures to standard Five, Six and Seven pupils of Magokotswane Primary School on a daily basis.
He said his organisation wanted to build the children’s  confidence by offering them presentation skills to be able to cope with stage fright.

He explained that most primary school pupils failed because they were unable to approach teachers for consultations, therefore if they practiced, it would be easy for them to ask for help from teachers.
Mr Maruping said his organisation wanted to instil the spirit of self-reliance and resilience on children as a way of preparing them to work on their own by not depending on teachers, parents or class mates all the time.
“We also teach them about health and environment because they should know about eating a balanced diet as well as to take care of the environment.
Children should be taught about food handling to avoid non-communicable diseases,” he said.

He further said they also teach children about economic empowerment in order for them to choose career paths at an early age.
He said children should know about different professions such as journalism and engineering other than teaching and nursing, which children were exposed to on a daily basis.
For his part, a peace corp volunteer, Mr Rokim Robinson said they were dedicated to enriching agriculture capacity on children, therefore they had started to offer Magokotswane primary pupils lectures on permanent gardening.
 He said he taught children permanent gardening for them to know that it could be used for financial, educational and personal benefits.

 Mr Robinson said permanent gardening was a method of gardening which allowed farmers to plough all year around without  wait for rain.
He said primary school pupils should be in a state to create plots for themselves as practice for junior school.
One of the participants, Amantle Matsapa was thankful to the organisation as she had learnt a lot of things including gardening projects.
She said she also learnt that litter could be used as manure. ENDS