1/6

South Africa Trip Offers Perspective to Collegiate Upper Schoolers

9/12/2017

Seven Collegiate Upper School students traveled with two faculty members to South Africa for the Lebone II Leadership Festival in July 2017. The festival’s mission is to bring together young people from diverse cultures and social backgrounds for enriching conversations and experiences.

For 10 days, the Collegiate juniors and seniors joined students from South Africa, Kenya and Botswana at Collegiate’s partner school, Lebone II College of the Royal Bafokeng. The students heard speakers and held discussions on the 2017 conference theme, Greed and Sustainability. Previous festival themes have included Deepening Democracy through Dialogue, Feminism, and Social Justice. In preparation for the trip, Collegiate students and faculty met to discuss South Africa and to examine the history of apartheid and the civil rights movement in the United States.

Collegiate junior Kate Johnston reflected on the trip to South Africa in an article about apartheid and Johannesburg in The Match, Collegiate’s student-run online news website dedicated to bringing the latest and greatest from the Collegiate community.

She says in her article, “The lasting effects of apartheid leave a problem that, ‘in itself is incredibly complicated’ according to Greer Buell (‘19). . . . The visiting American students, myself included, were taken aback by the conditions in Alexandra. Homes half the size of a typical living room with no running water or kitchen, and perhaps a mattress, that could have 10 people living in them.”

Read more student perspectives on the trip and conference on Collegiate’s International Travel blog.

Back