As part of Jeffreys Bay-based Global Leadership Academy’s unique TravelSCHOOL initiative, for six weeks the school’s Grade 10 learners were taken out of their comfort zone to explore Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar, to help grow their character, faith and leadership development.
GLA teacher Jennie Boersma, said that the school places a high emphasis on impacting the lives of the learners, disciplining them, growing future leaders and bringing forth learners who will leave the school truly knowing Jesus.
She said that to accomplish these goals, the school has various initiatives, with TravelSCHOOL offering a unique travel experience for the learners.
Boersma said that TravelSCHOOL exposes the school’s Grade 10 learners to different environments and circumstances.
She said that the first travel initiative took place in 2019 when the learners travelled to Russia, Cyprus and Turkey. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the initiative put on hold for at least two years.
In 2022 they began travelling again, but since there were many COVID-19 regulations which complicated their international travel plans, they decided to travel within South Africa’s borders to Transkei, Kokstad, Durban, Drakensberg, St Lucia, Lesotho and Clarens.
“Through the TravelSCHOOL initiative we take learners out of the classroom, and their comfort zone, to grow them in ways they would not if they were just at school. We help grow their character in practical ways, and we enable them to learn to love all people by serving others,” said Boersma.
During their most recent travel experience from June 22 to August 4, the learners and their teachers travelled to Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar, where they had to wash their own clothing by hand, cook food and wash dishes.
Boersma said that while they were in Kenya they stayed among the Maasai people, where they helped them build a road and a large table to improve the camp site for tourists.
In addition, they helped the locals and learners at the nearby school with computer literacy, maths, and English lessons.
While in Tanzania she said that they stayed at the Youth with a Mission base where they worked in the garden, cleaned the orphanage building on site and helped with children’s ministry.
Boersma said that throughout their journey, they served at various places in a variety of practical ways.
Despite the many fun and challenging experiences they had on the trip, she said that the learners were still required to complete their schoolwork, which was often done at coffee shops, on the carpets of empty farmhouses, the airport floor and any other place, except a classroom.
Boersma said that their final stop was Zanzibar, which offered an educational aspect to the trip, but the learners were able to have a well-deserved holiday since their schoolwork had been completed by then.
“The learners had to endure hardships, homesickness, crammed transport, and hard physical labour, as well as sorting out group dynamics on the road. Character and capacity were certainly stretched to the point of growth,” said Boersma.
She said that the six-week travel experience taught the learners to be selfless, as they had to share everything with one another and they were challenged physically, emotionally, and spiritually, which would be hard to accomplish in a traditional classroom setting.
Boersma said that the experience taught the learners that it is better to give than to receive, and they learnt to love others.
“The learners learnt to love across culture and language borders. They also became humble when they saw how much they have in comparison to others,” said Boersma.
“The kids really enjoyed reaching out to the people they met on our trip, and also learning new skills.”
Boersma said that when the learners returned home many of them felt that the experience had changed them and that their perspective of life had also changed.
She further said that she noticed that the learners had grown in maturity and character, and were able to become good friends with the learners from their grade whom they would not have been friends with otherwise.
