Meliores Nov 2019

MELIORES

SACRED HEART COLLEGE MARIST OBS EDUCATION WITH WITH HEART HEART THAT THAT KNOWS KNOWS NO NO BOUNDS BOUNDS

J U N E E D IEDITION T I O N 22019 015 NOVEMBER

Family Spirit | A Passion for Work | Simplicity | Presence | In the Way of Mary

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The Meliores, and our Alumni, now have their own logo! The logo has been designed by Kgomotso Mautloa, a 2003 Sacred Heart College graduate. The significance of the M in the logo is the word Meliores, which means more than simply ‘better’. It can mean ‘more fully’ or ‘to make better’. Meliora can be translated to mean ‘good’, ‘honest’, ‘brave’ or ‘kind’. Furthermore, the M represents the word Marist, which connects us as a family. The opening gates behind the M, traced from the school’s beautiful main gate, imply that our alumni are always welcome.

Kgomotso and his team at Green Robot Design (greenrobot.co.za) created a truly timeless icon; one that shows true insight.

“The most exciting and probably most thrilling part of my career as the Creative Director at Green Robot Design is that I create new work every day. No one day is the same. That’s what gets me up in the morning,” said Kgomotso, giving us a glimpse into his studio life. “The endless opportunity to give art life and to craft work that people will see and hopefully enjoy pushes me to do better.”

See our November 2014 edition for the full story.

Who’s Who ALUMNI COMMUNICATIONS Ellen Howell Alumni Relationship Manager alumni@sacredheart.co.za

LAYOUT AND DESIGN Cherry Bullard CJ Graphics

THANKS TO

the alumni, parents, learners and staff who contributed to this edition.

MELIORES

is owned and published by Sacred Heart College. The authors and contributors reserve their rights in regard to the copyright of their work. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the written consent of Sacred Heart College.

Contents A

2 I Messages from our Team A Note from the Head of College I 2 A Note from the Alumni Manager I 2

3 I Sacred Heart News

Pre-Primary School Bike Rally 19 October 2019 Climate Change Sifiso Nkabinde making waves in the coding world Farewell Colin Northmore Holiday Hiking Trips with Ziplining Spring Day and Leave Your Print Lesotho Trip in August Sacred Arts Festival: Building Bridges, Linking Networks

I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12

11 I Connecting with alumni

Frank Hollingworth – A SHC Legend Jerry Mabena – Class of 19 Lindi Tardif – Class of 1991 Reunion – Class of 1999 Alumni Banners Get involved

I 13 I 1 I 1 I 21 I 22 I 25

26 I Contact details

MESSAGES FROM OUR TEAM a Note from the Head of College

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ne of the strengths of Sacred Heart College lies in the way in which authentic relationships are created between students, teachers, parents and Alumni. From the grandparents’ tea, the bike rally, the box project, world religion evening, the Grade 11 job shadowing workshops with the Alumni, the Drop Everything and Read days with Parents, our Heritage Day celebrations and College Athletics Day: these events all celebrate what is uniquely Sacred Heart College. Relationships and friendships are built across grades and generations.

This creates the opportunity for intergenerational conversations and shared experiences, something we as a nation desperately need in an increasingly disconnected and violent social context.

These intergenerational conversations help current students enrolled at Sacred Heart College to understand the impact of their decisions and those of their peers within the broader context of the College’s reputation in the community. Our students’ interactions with our Alumni, parents and teachers allow them to build their own experiences and perspectives within a framework of what it means to be part of Sacred Heart College. They do this by providing wisdom, a sense of respect as well as countless examples of social responsibility and resilience.

It has been a pleasure engaging with several Alumni groups recently who are asking important questions about the revisioning of Sacred Heart College. It will be these intergenerational conversations that will allow us as a community to interrogate our core values and the basis for our revisioning and strategic planning going forward.

Each edition of Meliores is an example of the

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different generations of Alumni who interact with Sacred Heart College and their contribution to its reputation as well as their contribution to our society. We have a proud Alumni and each year we look forward to further conversations, engagement and interaction with you.

Heather Blanckensee Head of College; Principal: High School

a Note from the alumni Manager

Dear Alumni As with most things in life we go through change.

Here at Sacred Heart College we are going through a leadership change as we say farewell to Mr Colin Northmore and congratulations to Mrs Heather Blanckensee as the new Head of College.

I am sure that with Mrs Blanckensee as Head of Sacred Heart College; we will continue to thrive.

This issue of Meliores will provide you with insight into what is happening at Sacred Heart College currently and provide you with stories about our Alumni and what they have been doing since they have Matriculated.

Please remember to share your story with us so that we can inspire the next generation.

Warmest regards Ellen Howell Alumni Relationship Manager alumni@sacredheart.co.za

SACRED HEART NEWS Pre-Primary School Bike rally 19 october 2019

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t is a tradition in our Pre-Primary School to host a sponsored bike rally each year.

This year, the rally was on Saturday morning 19 October. While it was an opportunity to raise funds for our bike repairs, the aim of the morning was for children, parents and staff to enjoy a fun time together.

Sponsor forms were sent home for each child to complete. Family, friends and work colleagues were asked to assist in supporting this worthy cause. Children were sponsored per lap but some simply sent in a donation.

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SACRED HEART NEWS Climate Change

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n 14 June 2019 students from Sacred Heart College and other surrounding schools went on a march to raise awareness about man-made climate change and the lack of action being taken by the government to combat it. Holding posters with slogans like “There is no planet B” and shouting chants of “we stand for what we stand on”, the march began at Sacred Heart College and from there proceeded along Louis Botha Avenue. The march is part of a worldwide movement known as Fridays for Future. Around the world there are marches organised by students who are taking a stand to show the seriousness of the situation and who refuse to go to school on Fridays to put pressure on their governments by marching in their cities. The unified call is simple: climate change is man-made, and it is destroying our planet and stealing our future; if measures are not put in place (especially following the Paris Agreement) to lower our greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will be irreversible by 2030 and our future will be lost.

Article written by Natalie Kapsosideris, Grade 11 student

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SACRED HEART NEWS Sifiso Nkabinde making waves in the coding world Sifiso is on a scholarship at Sacred Heart College

with deep learning, which is like a software of artificial learning.

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“The application is used to scan images and text which is used to identify personal information on social media and what risks and vulnerabilities the users might be in danger of, “said Sifiso.

oburg teenager Sifiso Nkabinde might be in High school, but he is attracting notice in the coding world.

Sifiso, a Grade 10 student at Sacred Heart College, has been named one of the top young geeks in the country by Geekulcha – an organisation that focuses on empowering young people in IT. The 15-yearold is the youngest nominee on the list.

He said he stared coding when he was nine because “I wanted to control robotic equipment”.

Sifiso said he loves coding as it helps him acquire new technology skills.

Since he started coding six years ago, Sifiso has been working on building his own apps. To hone his skills, he joined the Sci-Bono Clubhouse in Newtown, Joburg – one of five in the country.

Through the programme, he met an employee of a big tech company who fuelled his love for coding and programming.

“I go twice a week to Sci-Bono to improve my coding skills. I have been trying to come up with several apps and when I go there, I get to work on them, “Sifiso said. Other than working on his apps, he also networks with other people.

He and his teammates took third place in the competition. He has since taken part in more hackathons, including the TadHack MTN hackathon where, with his teammates, he developed a secure, simple process to perform sim swops. He was given the “Rising Star” award at the event.

After High School, Sifiso wants to study Computer Science and Maths at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. This is where he hopes to finally get some apps – including a public transport sharing app – off the ground.

“It will be similar to the ones that we have now, but with my app you will not only be able to call a car but also public transport like buses and minibus taxis,” he said.

Sifiso, also an avid chess player, attributes his success to his parents.

“They have helped me get new gadgets for my passion. You always need the latest computer equipment.”

Last year, he attended his first hackathon at the ITWeb Security Summit.

The proud young man said: “I feel glad that I have come this far, but obviously it is a long journey. I just see myself as a beginner for now.”

“My teammates and I came up with an application that takes all information you post on social media and it uses mission learning tools,

Article published on 2 June 2019 on IOL News by written Asanda Matlhare and Kgomotso Lebelo https://www. iol.co.za/the-star/news/sifiso-15-making-waves-in-thecoding-world-2 420 4

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SACRED HEART NEWS Farewell Colin Northmore

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n the 31 May we held a special mass and a tea in honour of Colin Northmore, Head of Sacred Heart College, as the staff and students thanked him for everything that he has done for Sacred Heart College and wished him all the best for the future.

Farewell message from Heather Blanckensee, High School Principal At the beginning of the mass we brought up symbols that represent different memories or characteristics of Mr Northmore’s time here at SHC. Mr Northmore joined Sacred Heart College 16 and a half years ago. Although he had been involved in Catholic Education for some time, he found his home here at a time when the College needed a visionary leader.

The thing about visionary leaders is that they want the world to be a better place and to make a difference to their world. Mr Northmore has done that in the 16 and a half years that he has been at Sacred Heart College. He is deeply Marist and the 5 Marist values resonate with everything that he does.

One of the Marist Values that is sometimes

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hard to explain is in the way of Mary. Mary, by becoming the mother of Jesus, was open to opportunity and possibility. She said yes to God. Similarly, Mr Northmore can see opportunity and possibility in everything. He thinks and says yes, then works out how. He has a deep sense of service and like Mary was an agent of change.

Four years after joining Sacred Heart College we were involved in a school for refugees in the inner city and by 200 he had established the Three2Six Educational Project here at SHC. It’s hard to imagine what Sacred Heart College would be like without the Three2Six children sharing our classrooms in the afternoons and being part of the Sacred Heart DNA. He believes that everyone should have the opportunity to achieve more than they ever imagined and so in 2011 he introduced iPads, not to the high school but to the pre-primary school. He had Grade R children standing on a stage telling a large audience of stunned adults in Sandton how they loved using iPads to learn.

By 2013 we were one of the first iPad project schools in South Africa and were once again leading the way in curriculum and innovation.

Mr Northmore’s passion for teaching meant

that, despite all the responsibility and hard work that went with being the Head of College, he was determined to be in the classroom and teach. His app design classes with the Grade 7 learners were legendary and always started with the greeting we heard earlier. He wasn’t afraid to make mistakes and to use these mistakes to learn. This was his philosophy around discipline as well. He believed in restorative justice and often said if you couldn’t learn from your mistakes at school where else would you learn?

Like the Marist value love of work, he saw his teaching and the daily decisions of running the College as a joy and a privilege. You could often hear him singing along the corridors and I was never quite sure what song I would be listening to through my office door as he grappled with his College work.

There may have been times when you thought that he may have forgotten the value of presence and wasn’t as present as you would have liked.

However, even up until yesterday, Mr Northmore was meeting with Education Faculty Deans at the 3 main universities in Gauteng to encourage them to teach student teachers about thinking and talking about refugees, reminding people that Sacred Heart College, its students and Alumni have a strong sense of social justice. It has been his leadership that has set the tone of service and servant leadership.

He is also deeply devoted to his own family and, despite his work here at SHC, he has always tried to be present to his wife Lynn, his daughter Kate, his nephew Christopher (CJ), Nelisiwe his goddaughter and Gladys his helper. I would like to thank them for also being present to him and supporting him through the past 16 years while he has been “boss of the whole school” as CJ once told his pre-primary school friends.

Mr Northmore has often had to dodge guinea fowls on his way to and from school and so we hope he remembers how to drive in traffic. In addition to the guinea fowl the biggest obstacle that he has had to manage on his way to and from work has been the primary school children as they try to get him to say strawberry, and navigating around the thatched lapa and the jungle gym.

Mr Northmore has often spoken of standing on the shoulders of giants. I know that he is talking about Marcellin Champagnat, the Marist brothers who came to South Africa, those who started and led our schools, the leaders like Brother Neil McGurk and Brother Jude Pieterse who took brave decisions that went against the norms of society in each of their times.

Mr Northmore, you are now one of the giants on whose shoulders we stand and we thank you.

His family spirit can be seen in his care for all members of our community. He has helped Matric Students with finding a suit or a dress, he freely gave his cell number out on the evening of the matric dance so that if one of the matrics found themselves in trouble he could help them, no questions asked. He has secured medical treatment for several staff members who might not be alive today if it weren’t for his care and intervention.

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Farewell Colin Northmore continued

Coding Programmes

Three2Six

Mr Northmore has often spoken of standing on the shoulders of giants. I know that he is talking about Marcellin Champagnat.

US Trip

Love of children and sense of fun

His family spirit can be seen in his care for all members of our community.

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The thing about visionary leaders is that they want the world to be a better place and to make a difference to their world.

SACRED HEART NEWS Holiday Hiking Trips with Ziplining

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n the April holidays we went on three great hiking trips. The first was in the Walter Sisulu Botanical gardens where the children hiked a six kilometre trail. They also enjoyed playing in the outdoor gym and fooling about in the park.

The second hike was more challenging under a hot autumn sun. The children tackled a 1 km hike with ease in the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. They only had a few sightings of animals on the hike, but enjoyed the endurance side of things.

The third trip was in the Magaliesberg and we went zip-lining across the spectacular valleys at bird flight level. Once secured in safety helmets, harnesses and other safety gear we had a safety briefing. Then we were taken to the spectacular interconnected system of ziplines where the adventure began. The view of the valleys below was breathtakingly beautiful.

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SACRED HEART NEWS Spring Day and Leave Your Print

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n Friday the 13th of September Sacred Heart College Primary School and Pre-Primary School celebrated Spring Day. The students engaged in Spring Day activities during the morning.

We are aware that, every day, thousands of children in South Africa walk to school barefoot.

Consequently we decided to join our Spring Day to the Catholic Schools’ Office ‘Leave Your Print Day’ and collected money for charity, as many children affected attend Catholic schools.

So, on Friday 13 September 2019, all students in Catholic schools were invited to arrive at school barefoot in solidarity with many of their brothers and sisters who have no option but to

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attend school without shoes.

Each child was invited to donate a sum of money which would be used to support under-resourced schools in the Catholic network. Sacred Heart College managed to raise R34 3.10.

In 201 , the Catholic Board of Education (CBE) used the donations to establish a fund that began to address the needs of the most vulnerable schools within our Catholic schools’ network. Toilet facilities at five schools in four provinces were renovated or built.

SACRED HEART NEWS Lesotho Trip in august

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small group of Grade 6s travelled to Lesotho with Dr Potterton, Ms Lucy Magwaca, Mr Jakob Mauser and Mr Morris Nkuna. The group visited the Bethal Community College near Mount Moorosi where they learnt about alternative energy and sustainable living. On the second day they made their journey up the mountains to the town of Semonkong. From

there they hiked to the Maletsunyane Falls (these falls are the highest single-drop waterfall in Africa with a flow of water falling 192 m).

Another highlight at Semonkong was a talk on the traditional blankets of Lesotho.

The next stop was Malealea where they visited the local village and learnt more about Basotho culture. They also hiked to a beautiful gorge not far from the camp. The highlight at Malealea was a pony trek to a waterfall. The terrain was very rough, but the Basotho ponies never lost their footing.

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SACRED HEART NEWS Sacred arts Festival: Building Bridges, Linking Networks

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acred Heart College’s High School holds an Arts Festival at the end of June, biennially.

The festival, the High School’s cultural highlight, offers two exciting days when the curriculum is suspended and the students enjoy creative workshops, outings and performances. Students can enjoy the rare opportunity of engaging with professionals in a field that they may one day go into themselves. Allowing them to integrate into the world of work.

The College’s biennial Sacred Arts Festival celebrates the arts and acknowledges the crucial role that creativity and personal expression play in the development and all-round education of our students.

Each year there is a collaborative art project which symbolises our sense of family spirit through acknowledging our diverse back-grounds – this year we worked on the Legacy project.

This year’s Legacy Project, will give every student and teacher the opportunity to create a beaded wire sculpture

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relating to the theme “Building Bridges, Linking Networks”. Items such as shoes, leaves, lightbulbs and animals will be made, each representing a different type of connection.

These objects will be suspended from cables connected to a central tree outside the hall.

Some of the activities on offer included: art – wall murals, face to face special effects make up; fabric painting Spelling Bee Dance – hip/hop Meditation & Mindfulness Creative Career shaping Music – singing/DJ Making recycled chandeliers Scientific experiential photography

FRANK HOLLINGWORTH a SHC Legend “Teach me to care, and not to care” – TS Eliot (from the poem Ash Wednesday)

stories,” he says. His is a phenomenal career by any reckoning, if only measured in terms of the numbers of successful careers one teacher helped launch.

But anyone who knows Frank Hollingworth knows he also spent his teaching career caring more than he easily let on, and trying to teach struggling adolescents when to care a little less about the things they cared a little too much about.

If this feels like an anecdote with personal history, it is. Mr Hollingworth was the first teacher to speak to me at length, and candidly, about the tragic death of my younger brother.

He pointed me to philosophers and theologians as I tried to make sense of suffering in the world. He even gave my young self, relationship advice! As I grew, I heard that I was far from alone in this experience. “Mr Hollie” has always been a teacher of more than just Science.

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nstitutional memory is priceless. A source of information about the way we were, a person who remembers a time long, long before you came to this school, is a person who helps transmit ethos over generations. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’d do well to knock on the door of Sacred Heart College’s High School Science Lab 4. After all, that’s Frank Hollingworth’s lab, and has been since 19 9.

That’s right: 2019 is his 41st unbroken year of teaching Science to – we calculated this together – probably 2000 Sacred Heart matriculants (though he’s clocked 4 years teaching in total).

“Mr Hollie”, as he is affectionately known, says he loves nothing more than when ex-students check in with him. “If there’s any rewards in teaching, the reward is hearing success

In fact, his first job was teaching Latin – at St George’s College, Harare, in what was then Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Born in 194 to a family of four children, Mr Hollingworth was himself schooled at St George’s, where he says, with a modest smile that he managed to achieve “one star thing”: he won a competition from the Field Aircraft Services to be trained to become a pilot, and this he did as he turned 1 , making history as having a pilot’s licence before he left school. (He learnt on a Piper Cub and went on to fly a Cessna 1 2, for those in the know.)

“They said I could go into the Air Force after school, but I opted to join the Jesuits instead,” Mr H recalls. Nine years of university education in mainly philosophy followed at Heythrop College in England – where he met and studied with our own Father David Dryden. Mr Hollingworth remembers his student days as wonderful. He

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Frank Hollingworth continued

began his teaching career as a young Jesuit, the order that posted him to St George’s – which is a Jesuit college.

At St George’s he was the Form 3 dorm master and in his dorm was the now-famous Andrew Buckland. “Yes, he was my dorm prefect,” Mr H recalls with a chuckle. “Actually, they invited me to their 40-year reunion in 2015 – and I went. It was wonderful; my students were all old men with beards and grandchildren!”

But change was afoot. “I began to realise, after Vatican II, that this was not how I wanted to live my life.”

Frank left religious life and married Barbara, also a teacher – who actually taught History at Sacred Heart in 1979. “Look in the 1979 school magazine – you’ll see a picture of her,” says Mr Hollie.

Next came two years teaching at Mbabane Central School in Swaziland, before the family packed up and moved to Johannesburg. That’s how Frank Hollingworth arrived at the gates of our school.

Johannesburger

Br Neil McGurk was the Head of College at Sacred Heart College – known colloquially to all Joburgers as Marist Brothers Observatory.

Frank made friends for life here. Micky Lill – after whom our gym is named – taught at SHC after his career, playing for Everton FC and England U23, was cut short by injury. “The other person I remember well,” says Frank, “and people are surprised when I talk about him, because they don’t remember he was a person – is Brother Macartin. He used to come and sit outside my lab for a chat at breaktime.” Now, of course, we remember him via the Macartin Centre.

Frank lists lifelong friendships made with other long-service teachers: Gerald McGurk, Vivien

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“We are the only two who remember the school when it was boys only,” he recalls. “The girls arrived in 1980.

MacAlpine, Veronica Sandham, Henry du Toit, Carin Roux, Heather Blanckensee (now our head), Yamini Modi, Mary Kapsosideris, Lindi Ngwenya – more or less in order of their arrival at SHC. “And Jenny Field! We are the only two who remember the school when it was boys only,” he recalls. “The girls arrived in 1980.”

The arrival of the girls caused some changes.

Mr Hollingworth says Br Neil gave all the staff tasks: “My job was to change the name over our metal gate, which used to read ‘Marist Brothers Observatory’, back to the official name of Sacred Heart College. The letters were clamped onto the metal. I unclamped them and rearranged the letters. I was short a D, 2 Cs, an H… I made wooden moulds. Now I needed metal. In the section of the school that was the old dormitory (back when we were a boarding school – now the IT area) there were some old lead plumbing pipes sticking out of the brickwork. I sawed them off and melted them down, pouring the lead into the moulds.

That’s my handiwork you drive under every day when you arrive at school. If you look carefully, you can see that the D is a little skew.”

High jinx

Asked to recall just one or two highlights out of the many times japes and capers formed part of the unofficial curriculum in Lab 4, Frank struggles to pick just one. “1987 stands out as the Beer Year,” he finally admits. “That was Tommy Harper’s year, I think. We were learning about the alcohols in organic chemistry, and the class started pestering me to make beer.

Eventually I said, okay. The next day they

I had to implement a rule: beer would go home with dads only. Guys were carting home boots full of homebrewed beer – and it was delicious!”

arrived carrying hops, barley, yeast… Now I was committed. We stirred up a brew and let it rest overnight. The next morning I walked to school as usual, and a fug of fermentation hung over Observatory. The whole place smelled like a brewery! Well, we sealed off the containers and let the brew settle for eight months. Eventually it was time to bottle the beer. The kids arrived with bootloads of bottles, and they all wanted to take their brew home. I had to implement a rule: beer would go home with dads only. Guys were carting home boots full of home-brewed beer – and it was delicious!”

Other years benefitted from Mr Hollie’s dipping into his well-stocked lab, in particular, his large bucket of potassium nitrate, from which many a rocket’s fuel was made, and many a rocket launched across the soccer field – or the rugby field, as it was back in the old days.

One time, though, Frank miscalculated. “I was stirring an unstable mixture – this was (now SHC board member) Zeyn Angamia’s class – and it exploded in my hands. I blew my beard and my eyelashes off! Boy, I was lucky that day.”

Touch powder regularly shocked a distracted Science student back to the subject at hand in Hollie’s classes, and Frank was always up for some fun – but only if the class’ work was ahead of schedule.

Mr Hollingworth was widowed in 2008 after he had nursed his wife through illness for five years, while also teaching full-time. “That time of my life didn’t leave me much spare time,” he says.

His most recent crop of students in many

ways have a harder time with Science, says Mr Hollingworth, than generations gone by.

Standards have not dropped – on the contrary, he says, the material has become more complex.

It’s hard to find a discipline that has changed more than Science. Today’s 16-year-olds have to retain a large amount of information and also apply that knowledge in the world. “We might not get ridiculously high book-learning exam results at Sacred Heart, but we get students who don’t fail at university.”

Young people and their energy keep teachers young, he knows. What else keeps Frank young? Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. His daily walk around the field with Teddy, his ninth dog, are sacrosanct. It’s the 50 minutes of his day where he does his thinking, meditating, even lesson planning.

Frank is proud of his students, and don’t mention retirement to him. “I enjoy the children.

I know I would miss them.” So how long will he continue teaching? How many more Chess Clubs will shine under his guidance?

Mr Hollingworth shrugs. “Maybe I’ll make it to 50 years of teaching, in three years’ time. Or to when I’m 75 years old. Maybe beyond, who knows?”

Article written by Margo Doherty

What students have to say:

My name is Daniel Sadie. Mr Hollingworth taught me Science from Grade 10 (2004) – to Grade 12 (2006).

A lot of people remember Mr Hollingworth as the teacher who never gave homework; or the crazy man blowing things up in class.

I remember Mr Hollingworth as the science teacher who cared.

He could see that I was struggling in class as I was constantly talking to my class mates.

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Frank Hollingworth continued

When he moved me to his desk, it showed me that he believed that I could do better. It was his belief in me that gave me all the confidence that I was missing when it came to the Sciences.

By the end of the lesson I had no recollection of what he had taught. I was passing Science but by the skin of my teeth. At the beginning of Grade 11 Mr Hollingworth made me stay behind one lesson and told me that from now on I’m not sitting with the rest of the students. He said that I would now sit at his desk at the front of the class alone. I sat there from Grade 11 to 12.

When he moved me to his desk, it showed me that he believed that I could do better. It was his belief in me that gave me all the confidence that I was missing when it came to the Sciences. This confidence went a long way during my studies at Wits. Today I am a registered professional engineer.

Congratulations on your 40th year anniversary at SHC Mr Holly.

Danielle Edwards (Class of 96) Frank Hollingworth was my favourite teacher in high school at SHC and, given how incredible all my teachers were, that is saying a lot.

From 1994 to 1996 we laughed and learned so much in his lab and had some great conversations – usually about cricket.

Knowing how much I loved cricket he simply contextualized the theory by applying it to what happens to a cricket ball from the time it’s bowled to the path of the ball from impact with a bat.

My favourite memory of Mr Hollingworth was when, despite his attentions, I just could not wrap my head around a concept in a Physics class (vectors I think). Rather than throwing endless theory and jargon at me, knowing how much I loved cricket, he simply contextualized the theory by applying it to what happens to a cricket ball from the time it’s bowled to the path of the ball from impact with a bat. I certainly didn’t get an A in Science at the end but I did pass and left with a life long love of Science.

Today despite my less than stellar Physics achievements in High School I work in the satellite communications sector with a deep love of Cosmology, Astronomy and Space Science. And while I am by no means a “scientist”, the foundation Mr Hollingworth gave me, along with his example of passion and joy in what you do, stay with me, despite the many years since I was last in his lab.

Thank you Sir.

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CLASS OF 19

JERRY MABENA Thebe Tourism group: Trailblazing in Transformation

“The call to foster tangible transformational growth in the tourism sector is what inspired me to take on this role, “says Mabena.

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he Thebe Tourism Group is one of South Africa’s oldest black-empowered companies that has successfully invested in some of the most incredible tourism destinations, businesses and products in South Africa.

These include the Cape Point Concession, the Mandela Presidential Centre, the Kruger Shalati, the Kruger Station Precinct, and the Club Travel and Soul Traveller Tours. Sitting at the helm of this trailblazing company is 49 year old Jerry Mabena, the chief executive.

“The call to foster tangible transformational growth in the tourism sector is what inspired me to take on this role, “says Mabena. “The industry is one of the biggest contributors to our economy and it is possible for us to double it in terms of employment and size. It is also possible to do so in a way that empowers previously disadvantaged groups that include women and young South Africans. They are all the hardest hit when it comes to unemployment.”

The company likes to invest in iconic and unusual spaces that are found nowhere else in the world, positioning its portfolio as bucket-list destinations for tourists from around the world.

“This is why I love my job,” says Mabena. “Our latest investment is the Kruger Shalati’s Train on a Bridge, a unique luxury accommodation experience set to open in the Kruger National Park in December. It is a new tourism and hospitality product that will see luxury accommodation housed inside a refurbished and reimagined train.”

The development will include 24 rooms with 4 beds stationed on the Selati Bridge that spans the Sabie River from bank to bank. The rooms overlook the river and include dining and lounge areas plus a pool overlooking the river. It sounds extraordinary and is yet another notch in this dynamic trailblazer’s belt.

Article published in the Mail & Guardian April 12 to 1 2019 South African Tourism Magazine and written by

With Mabena at the helm, Thebe Tourism Group is changing the landscape by focusing on investments in rural and township economies.

Tamsin Oxford

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CLASS OF 1991

LINDI TARDIF Daughter of apartheid

That was my choice, and I was willing to accept the consequences of making it.

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orn in Soweto into an anti-apartheid activist family Lindi Tardif lost her father when she was young, and her grandfather was exiled.

Today, with four degrees under her belt, she works for Amazon in Seattle, US, and has published her inspiring story of how human values, faith and choices have shaped her success.

His voice was sort of friendly, but this was a command, not a request. I walked on, not responding. He kept repeating the command as the car rolled along beside me, matching my pace. I just kept walking and looking straight ahead, engaging with them as little as possible.

In this extract, that was published in City Press on 2 August 2019, she is a schoolgirl. https:// city-press.news24.com/Voices/book-extractthe-tsotsi-in-the-car-20190802

I’d been propositioned by neighbourhood boys before, even by tsotsis, but they left me alone once they realised, I was not interested and would not accede to their demands. The showno-interest-and-dig-your-heels-in strategy usually worked, but this time it failed. The car kept rolling along beside me, with the guy growing more and more insistent.

One day when I was about 16 years old, I was returning home from Sacred Heart. The taxi dropped me off on Tema Street, and from there, I walked the third of a mile to my grandmother’s house. A car suddenly appeared alongside me, its windows rolled down and three guys inside.

The car was ordinary – a light-brown, four-door sedan – as were the guys, who appeared to be around 1 or 20 years old. I can’t tell you much more than that because I was trying very hard to keep looking ahead. I knew that giving them more than a quick glance would be interpreted as an invitation to continue.

“Get inside,” one of them said to me in Zulu.

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Then it dawned on me: this was more than a proposition. Oh, my God! I thought. I’m being jackrolled!

Jackrolling might seem like a quaint expression – cute, almost – but it was the worst thing that could happen to a woman. To be jackrolled meant to be snatched off the street by a group of guys, stuffed into their car, driven off somewhere, and raped repeatedly, at least once by each of the guys, maybe more. Most women who were jackrolled did not live to tell the tale.

I knew that once you were in the car, you were finished, so I kept walking, staring, and strolling ahead as if nothing was wrong, for to show any sign of weakness would spur them on.

“Come on, cutie, get in,” one of them ordered in Zulu again. I could hear the others saying something to each other but couldn’t make it out. I kept walking.

I had repeatedly refused to obey [orders], and now they were angry. They continued driving slowly alongside me, their voices increasingly insistent, their tone growing louder, and their words harsher. People saw what was happening and started gathering in a group near the corner of Tema and Mzinyane Streets.

In what seemed like a few seconds, there were about 20 people standing in front of the house, watching. Just watching. No one said anything, no one challenged the guys, no one motioned for me to hurry into their house. That wasn’t how things were done, even though many of these people recognised me, and some even knew my family.

You just didn’t get involved; it was too dangerous.

If you intervened, the jackrollers would come after you right there and then, and the police wouldn’t protect you, as they were generally absent. (You couldn’t just summon them with a 911 call.) Nobody dared do more than stand there. The neighbourhood watched this drama unfold as quietly and passively as if they were watching an episode of a crime show on TV. And me? I just kept walking, looking ahead, letting my body language signal “no” over and over again, not getting in the car, and not allowing my body to betray any anger, any fear, any anything. I knew the worst thing I could do was to show fear or to cry, for both would be seen as signs of weakness.

Then one of them hopped out of the car. He

was thin, of medium height, with short hair.

Nothing about his appearance was memorable except the menace in his eyes. I knew he was going to grab me. I stopped dead in my tracks, knowing that I had to stand my ground. Doing so probably wouldn’t help, but to back down, cry, or run would certainly lead to disaster.

I was terrified. There was no way I could get away from these three guys, and no one was going to come to my aid. There was nothing to do but ask for help. Oh God! my heart cried out.

You have to help me! I’m not going to convince these guys to let me go, and no one is helping me.

I just stood there, hoping something would happen. Then suddenly, one of the guys in the back of the car said: “Yazini? Yekani les’ sfebe!”

– meaning, “You know what? Leave this whore alone.”

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Lindi Tardif continued

“Ja,” said the driver, “yeka les’ sfebe.”

Without a word, the guy I feared would grab me sauntered back to the car and got in, and they drove off. And that was that; it was all over.

People returned to their homes as quietly as they had come out. No one asked me if I was all right, no one gave me a reassuring smile, and no one nodded a greeting. It was just another day, another almost-jackrolling, another incident that filled the neighbourhood with fear and anger that no one would acknowledge, for living with intimidation was so very routine.

IT’S ALL ABOUT CHOICE I haven’t thought about this much over the years because it was, indeed, so routine. And now I realise that it had to remain routine in my mind; otherwise, I might have broken down in tears.

There wasn’t anything I could do about jackrolling, life in Soweto, or apartheid [South Africa] – except to make the choices I believed would help me make a better life for myself someday, somehow.

I had to choose to avoid compromising situations with boys that could lead to my becoming a parent before I was ready, choose to steer clear of friends who were bad influences, choose to get the best education available to blacks, and above all, choose to hold on to my faith and remain strong.

That was my only power: choice.

Even though we as a people hardly had any power of choice, the idea that I had choice and the responsibility to exercise it wisely was ingrained in me from an early age. My mother, Esther Happy Langa, never told me I couldn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, neglect my homework, hang out with boys, or anything else.

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Instead she said: “Lindi, you have the freedom to do whatever you want, make any choice you like. But remember: you are not free from the consequences of that choice.” She was teaching me an important lesson, which was that life doesn’t “just happen”.

Instead it is driven by the many choices we make. Yes, there are limitations created by choices other people have made, often before we are born. Apartheid slapped severe limitations on the lives of all of the “others”, and there were additional restrictions imposed by family, economic circumstances, geography, and other factors. But no matter how bound our lives may be, there are always choices to make, and we are always affected by the results of those choices.

When the jackrollers pulled up beside me, I chose not to break down and cry, and I chose not to comply. I made the choice to risk infuriating them by demanding my dignity and saying no. Things might have gone much worse for me because of this, and other women may have gotten into the car in hopes of keeping the damage level low, relatively speaking, or maybe even talking the jackrollers out of it.

Those were common strategies, and it’s not for me to judge others. When you’re in that situation, your fear level leaps off the charts, and you grasp at any straw that pops into your terrified mind.

I can only say that for me, the choice was clear: even if they beat me fiercely because of it, my answer was no. I felt that if I didn’t stand my ground, I would be raped multiple times, possibly impregnated, or killed – so my answer was no. I was not getting in that car!

That was my choice, and I was willing to accept the consequences of making it.

REUNION

We are always delighted when the Alumni have their reunion at Sacred Heart College.

This year the class of 1999 had a bring and braai to celebrate the 20 Years since leaving school.

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The Twist, by Chubby Checker becomes the biggest dance hit of all time

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Jessica Watson at age 16 becomes the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world

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Sacred Heart as a venue for a reunion.

Ellen Howell Alumni Relationship Manager alumni@sacredheart.co.za

FAMILY SPIR

GET INVOLVED Support these Fund raising Initiatives!

Help Sacred Heart College in their gET INVoLVED Campaigns, so that while you shop you can DoNaTE to the charity of your CHoICE. amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/ 2-1 0902 We Benefit: https://www.webenefit.co.za/ My School: https://www.myschool.co.za/

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Sacred Heart college Tel: 011 487 9000 / 011 081 2219 e-mail: info@sacredheart.co.za Web: www.sacredheart.co.za

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MARIST OBSERVATORY CONTACT US

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