School Programmes

Bisho High School, Eastern Cape

A new Schools Programme, run by Noluthando Camngca at the Bisho High School in the small town of Bisho in the Eastern Cape, will begin in April this year.

Noluthando Camngca is a graduate of the Diploma in Professional Photography from CityVarsity School of Media Art in Cape Town with majors in photojournalism, and teaching photography in 2007. Having served her practical workshop component for the teaching module at CityVarsity with 19 and 20 year old 1st year students of photography, Ms. Camngca is well equipped to handle high school first time image makers.

Ms. Camngca, as an agent for The South African Centre for Photography, has formed a partnership with the school in designing a visual literacy and beginners' photography module that she feels she would have benefited from as a high school pupil at the school where she herself studied for matric.

Equipped at this early stage of the project with back issue South African magazines of all kinds, 3 donated point and shoot digital cameras and a 20 week course outline which she designed, this fine young photographer and teacher intends to make a difference in her home town community's understanding of the visual sensibilities.

• Read Noluthando's Statement

f-nonstop Pinhole Photography

f non-stop is a schools based pinhole photography project, co-ordinated by the South African Centre for Photography, at UCT and run in consultation with educationalists from the Western Cape Education Department. Its aim is to encourage and promote photography as a creative medium, and as a valuable and exciting teaching tool.

One of the most recent developments is that from this year the project has found a home at the MTN Sciencentre at Canal Walk, Century City. Canon South Africarecently sponsored the first two learner, 'edutainment' workshops held at the Sciencentre, during July 2001. We are hoping to continue with our teacher pinhole workshops at the Sciencentre as well. More information on the project follows in History, or if you have specific queries you can email the project co-ordinator, Jean Brundrit .

History

f non-stop has been operational since 1998 when we ran pilot learner workshops in three schools from historically differing backgrounds. This experience highlighted some of the issues that we have attempted to address over the years. During 1998 South Africa held its first Year of Science and Technology (YEAST) and f non-stop ran a series of successful learner workshops as part of this event. One of the issues highlighted during our first workshops and again during YEAST is that of sustainability. It's important to engage learners in a workshop situation, but we realised that with limited resources, we should be centring our efforts on teacher training. Teachers could then use pinhole photography in the classroom and hopefully establish a culture around an ongoing photographic project at their school.
With this in mind and with encouragement from Jenny Ulster, of the WCED Subject Advisory Service, a series of seven teacher workshops were run in the rural areas of the Western Cape. The workshops were held over a month at George, Oudtshoorn, Beaufort West, Worcester, Caledon, Swellendam and Ceres. A total of 94 teachers attended the workshops.

This project is co-ordinated by Jean Brundrit, University of Stellenbosch, and Svea Josephy, a freelance photographic teacher. Gill Cowan and Jenny Ulster both of the WCED's Subject Advisory Service have made significant contributions to the project's success.