“Give a man a fish and he will only eat for today, teach him how to fish and he will feed for a lifetime”, this underlying philosophy underlies the work done by the Ilitha-Leseding Foundation.  Ilitha-Leseding Foundation is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that specializes in providing educational support programmes that include but not limited to: Career Guidance workshops, Career Mentoring and academic tutoring to grade 9-12 learners attending schools situated in rural and township Schools in South Africa. at the moment they are focusing on Western Cape, where they have introduced their programmes to 4 needy schools.

Furthermore, in addition to the programmes it has run over the past two years, Ilitha in its work at Sinethemba Secondary School identified a need for a functioning school library to better aid the needs of the school learners and the educators alike. In September last year at the Education Summit held at Sinethemba in Phillipi, Ilitha committed itself to getting the school library functioning by March 2011. This led to the establishment of the Ilitha lethemba library Initiative under their Adoppt-A-School library Campaign. Ilitha-lethemba library signifies the partnership between the Sinethemba Secondary School and Ilitha-leseding Foundation in sourcing a qualified librarian and appointing him or her to run the school library. In March this year this was achieved, and Lunathi Mahobe a B Bibl University of the Western Cape graduate was appointed as the first qualified school librarian at Sinethemba Secondary School.    

The School together with Ilitha is determined to make the school library fully functional to assist not only learners but the educators too. This will be achieved by running programmes that will get learners involved with the library familiarizing themselves with it and informing them of the rich benefits and opportunities opened up to them here.  

By Janine Jansen, Founding Partner and CEO & Relationship liaison manager