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P.A.Y giving the children of Katutura hope

Marie Jeanne Ndimbira

The Physically Active Youth programme (P.A.Y) is an after school programme in Katutura where approximately 100 learners from grade 1 to 12 go every day for free academic tutoring and a free light meal.
There is no registration fee and on Fridays the format is changed to life skills training, which aims to foster critical thinking among youth and empower them to become active agents of change in their community as well as responsible global citizens.

Marie Jeanne Ndimbira, Co-Founder and Executive Director of P.A.Y, and colleague Nenad Tomic, Programme Coordinator, say that P.A.Y aims to strengthen basic numeracy and literacy skills and support the Namibian youth to develop critical reasoning skills.
One of the many goals that they have for this year is to produce bursary eligible grade 12 graduates. P.A.Y has stated that it is not enough for their learners coming from disadvantaged backgrounds to simply pass Grade 12 with 25 points in five subjects, but that they need to be eligible for Government bursaries or qualify for loans so that they enter University.
They also aim to nationalise the programme and offer it to Namibian youth in all corners of the country.  P.A.Y says that what sets them apart from other such initiatives is the set of values they aim to promote and the holistic methodology they use to address some of the fundamental challenges of post-apartheid education. They take young people seriously and provide them with a platform where their intrinsic potentials can come to the fore.
According to P.A.Y, they have succeeded in producing a 91% passing rate of their Grade 10 and 12 participants, compared to 37% of the non participants in Katutura, and one of their Grade 12 members achieved the maximum 42 points on the final exams. They are also constantly producing athletes that can compete at national levels and find that children enrolled in their programmes far outperform their peers in the Katutura community.
P.A.Y says that some of the challenges they face is the redundant bureaucracy:they often spend hours dealing with inefficient administrators from various offices achieving very little in the process, they also face major transportation challenges as they need to transport their learners to races, workshops and cultural events.
The programme money comes from both national and international sponsors, who fund specific aspects of the programme, they include Rand Mechant Bank (RMB), NEDBANK, The Global Diploma, Uukumwe Youth Empowerment Consortium and the Government of Namibia.
P.A.Y also aims to reach 3000 likes on their Facebook page so please help them reach it by linking to http://www.facebook.com/NamibiaPhysicallyActiveYouth?

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