WC learner’s essay among top three in country | Western Cape Education Department
WC learner’s essay among top three in country

WC learner’s essay among top three in country

23 November 2021

Jordan Sarah Langenhoven of the Leap Science and Maths School in Cape Town won second place in the national leg of the 2021 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secondary School Essay Competition.

The competition was open to all Secondary School learners in the region.

Learners had to submit a 1 000-word essay on how SADC contributed to peace and security in the last 40 years and how SADC can consolidate peace going forward.

A panel of Department of Basic Education officials from the Curriculum Policy, Support and Monitoring Branch adjudicated the process and selected the three best essays which were submitted to the SADC Secretariat for the regional leg of the competition.

Langenhoven’s well written essay won her $300.

She advocated for youth agency and an end to violence against women and children. An extract reads: “That also leads me to another challenge the SADC faces. The lack of presence of young voices, with actual capacity. It must be the regions’ mandate and goal to employ as many young people in governance and spark interest in International Affair, and to give younger generations the ideas of honest government to spare our people more years of corrupt governing. I think my generation is more outspoken and liberal than any other before, and it thus angers me that we aren’t given any real authority. Instead of youth parliaments, we should have the youth in the actual parliaments, right next to the older leaders who make decisions about futures they will not live to see.

“Paired with the emboldening of young Africans, should be that of young African women and girls. The issue of GBV is a pressing one and studies have shown that in civilizations where women are given authority, the patriarchal notions that inspire rape and femicide, are at a pleasant low. I want that for my peers, I want a safe environment for women and girls to live in.

“In closing, I would like to quote Tim Murithi, a renowned contributor to diplomacy and peacebuilding in Africa on his sentiments of sustaining the African Momentum for Change, “African continental integration is not yet a concrete reality, remaining a promise to be fulfilled.”

“I will hold onto that promise, I carry the hope and envisions of those in Lusaka in 1980, they are mine today. I aspire to be an agent for positive change on the continent and in the region, to better the lives of the next generation of African children. I believe it to be my social responsibility.”

The topic for the 2022 SADC Secondary School Essay Competition is “How can SADC boost productive capacities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?”

More information is available at the following link: https://www.sadc.int/news-events/news/launch-sadc-secondary-school-essay-competition-2022/