The Class of 2018 has founds its way to the Sustainability Institute and the Lynedoch EcoVillage. It is our largest class since we started in 15 years ago, with a total of 58 registered! 40 out of the 58 are women, which means there are more men this year than last year. Just under 50% are black (28) and the remainder are white, even though over 60% of the original group offered positions were black. There are more black students who do not show up for registration than white students because of lack of finances for fees and accommodation. There seems to be an uptick in the number of people from the public sector, after many years of decline – total of 12 out of 58, with the remainder from the private sector (21), non-profit sector (5) and 17 full-time students (our highest ever). Interestingly, 37 out of 58 are doing the degree full-time, which I also think is the highest number to date doing the degree full-time. There 9 non-South African students – 2 Brazilians, 2 from Lesotho, 1 Namibian, 3 from the USA and 1 Zimbabwean. For the first time ever there are no East Africans, which has got a lot to do with the unwise decision to significantly increase the fees for non-South Africans, coupled to the usual problems of getting study permits in time. In general, our University system is unfriendly for non-South African Africans, which is tragedy. This year we included a new process during orientation which was to ask everyone to think of the question they are bringing to the course, and then to mould in clay a symbolic representation of their question. I have included a few pics of some of these, especially for the benefit of past students.
Morning stretches
Morning work – preparing lunch
Washing the feet of students
Theo and Mark – feet washing ceremony
sharing about the river
listening to a lecture
deep ecology at the river
Yoliswa, permaculture teacher, introduces the students to the garden
welcome lunch
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