Sebotsi's Got Talent

Since I am the librarian at my school, I have had the opportunity to get know the students who frequent the library. A lot of the grade 11 and 12 students use the library time to find books for research projects, and to chat with me about university applications and life in general. It's been great for both myself and my students; I get to understand the difficulties they face everyday, and they get to know a little more about American culture.

One trouble that many students at my school face, is not being able to pay for the application fee for University. This is a unbelievably heartbreaking barrier. Can you imagine working hard through school to face the fact that you cannot even afford applying for a university? The fee for University of Limpopo costs R350, the equivalent of $25 (a year ago, it would have been $35). Now to put this in perspective, I get paid R2700 a month, which is higher than many of the parents in the village I work in. If they did get paid R2,700 a month, the application fee to one university is more than a 10^th of their monthly salary.

In the beginning of term 3, two of my grade 12 students came to me explaining that many of their classmates are not able to apply for university due to the high application fees. These two students didn't come asking for money, they came looking for a sustainable solution. A solution that would not help their class, but for the students that came after them. We started talking about different ways we could raise money for the grade 12 students next year. One of my South African friends who teaches in the city had just finished up a Talent Show at her school, and was able to raise a lot of money. I suggested doing a talent show for the school and charging each student R3 to raise money. The boys loved the idea, and we started working on a date for the auditions, a date for the actual talent show, and the age range that was allowed to participate in the school. We decided on grades 5-11, since grade 4 was too young, and grade 12 needed to focus on studying for their matric tests.

Auditions took place at the beginning of August. The day before the auditions started I had my two grade 12 students go to the grade 5-11 classrooms and inform them about the Talent Show. I recruited another teacher to help me watch and judge the auditions. From the auditions, we decided to take 10 different learners to perform for the actual Talent Show. We had a great array of students audition from comedians to dancers to singers. We posted the list of students who were a part of the show outside the library. For the next two weeks, I had the students come and practice their performances, and to give them feedback. I asked one of my charismatic grade 12 students to be the MC for the show, and gave him a script that he was allowed to deviate from whenever he saw necessary.

Our MC for the Talent Show
 

The week before the show, I asked a few Peace Corps volunteers to help be the judges for the show, since I felt it would be nice to have judges from outside the village. Plus, I would need to extra help when it came down to the show. I also made a program for the teachers, so that they would know what to expect during the show.

Wonderful peace corps volunteers sitting in as judges for the talent show.

Two days before the show, I started selling tickets. Of course, this is Africa, so no one bought tickets the days before. I was a nervous wreck the night before the show, thinking how I had only sold ten tickets. The next day, I asked four of my grade 11 students to help sell tickets, and the two grade twelve boys. Quickly sales spiked, and we were selling tickets faster than I could print them.

When it came to the show, I asked Nic and Zoe (my two Peace Corps Volunteer judges) to help set up the room for the show. We have two classrooms that has a divider between them that turns into a bigger room for performances and lectures. While they were doing that, I collected my performers to quickly practice one more time before they got changed into their outfits.

When it was time for the performance to start, I had two grade 11 students at the door to collect tickets and to let students in. After about twenty minutes, all the students had shuffled into the room, and the room was packed! I couldn't believe how many students ended up buying tickets!

Our audience!

My MC walked up on stage and got their attention to calm down, he then called Mr. Rangwato onto stage to open our show with prayer. Of course, since I'm really cheesy, I made all the teachers come up on stage, and sing a beautiful rendition of shosholoza, the only song that I could think of that we all know.

It was now the students' turn. They each came onto stage, and did their performances. Each one was received well, with lots of cheering. The MC congratulated all of them on their hard work, and praised them for how well they performed. When the performances were done, Nic and Zoe went to decide who were going to be Sebotsi's most talented, while my MC kept the crowd going with jokes and dancing.

When Nic and Zoe came back, they thanked all the students who performed, and then began giving out prizes. They prizes were a book, a pack of blue, black and red pens (something the students are lacking), notebooks, a CD, and a certificate. Third place went to the break dancer, second place went to a dancer (who was so excited she started crying), and first place went to a boy who recited a poem that he wrote.

 

At the end of the day we raised over R500. Enough to help two students send in applications to a university next year. The teachers loved the talent show, and are now planning to do another talent show next year.

Helpful tips for PCVs:

Every village is different, and every village has their own medium income. From what I knew about my students, was that they wouldn't spend more than R3 to attend the show, your village could possibly be completely different.

When you sell tickets to grades 6-11, write the name of the student on the front, so that the tickets cannot be stolen from one another.

When selling tickets to grades R-5, give their tickets to their teacher, so that they can hand them out right before the performance (otherwise they will lose them).

Ask the students to bring their outfits the day before the performance. One, so that you can make sure their change of clothes are appropriate, and two, so that the student will be prepared on the day of the performance.

Ask around to see if someone from the community can come and play music between performances and while the judges are deciding who has won.