Surrounded by majestic mountains, Blouberg is a beautiful city in the Limpopo region. For four weeks the tutor team there has been running the PULSE program The Challenge. Each week the tutor team has been working with one challenge. On their last day with The Challenge the team chose to work with the topics team work and mastering. The tutors figured out that a good way to give the members the chance to develop their team work skills and experience mastering could be to prepare and conduct a concert. The whole primary school where they rehearse, Lethaleng School, and students from the nearby high school were invited.

The concert was filled with songs and movements made by the members themselves. The engaged audience got to see drum breaks, marimba solos, songs and movements. This was a great way to showcase the members’ creativity and give them an outlet for expression. By the end of the show the whole band performed together. The youngest kids in the audience got so inspired by the rhythms that they simply had to get up from their chairs and join in with the dancers.

The head of the school, Mr. Bopape, was not in doubt when he said – “I see a great change in the children that have joined the field band. They are all more confident and filled with a positive energy”.

The Kimberley field band had their final The Challenge event, a concert, on Tuesday this week. This band have members from both a Xhosa school and a Tswana school. Because of this they had chosen the topics cultural differences and team work as their last challenges. To work on the two topics the members from one cultural group had learned songs from the other culture, so for excample the Xhosa group had learned songs in Tswana and vice versa. In the end they all joined together, created a huge choir and sang together.

The two PULSE participants, Godfrey and Stella, have been running The Challenge in Blouberg and Kimberly. When we have visited it has been nice to see how creative and responsive the tutor teams have been to the program. Stella and Godfrey have been great facilitators.

The Challenge is also running in Hanover with their final event to come next week.

Stay tuned!

Written by Ingrid Thorstensen and Siri Thorson