Stand Your Truth ID

Stand Your Truth Article

Mandisa Mndela – Founder at Stand Your Truth, Author and a South African Native, took a Stand, and ...

Here in, express her experiences on being forgotten, ignored and not catered for by the system that is meant to inform or guide us to our purpose.

My point of departure on this issue had to be the question on why exactly are we here? What is our purpose? Individually and as a collective? Are the systems that are put in place meant to inform us, address this issue? Do they cater for this kind of knowledge?

Scratching for answers, I found myself taken back into how I grew up with my grandmother, a very mean grandmother. A smile from her was as rare as meeting a polar bear in the grasslands of the savannah. She showed no compassion or empathy at all. You would dare start a sweet conversation with her even about your dreams and aspirations, let alone contemplate to ask any questions about any issue with her.

She would crush that in an instance. I remember, I loved reading and writing my thoughts in expressing my dreams and vision at an early age, but my grandmother would slap me at any given time she finds me reading or writing, telling me to go fetch this, do that, clean the house for the tenth time just to switch off that light of my creativity and dreams.

The village loudest rooster crows in the early hours of the day, our kitchen is the first to demonstrate a smouldering fire place as seen from the smoke billowing into the clean air at the crack of dawn. Water must be boiling in a ten litre aluminium basin, the porridge ready and steaming hot.
The homestead must be swept spotlessly clean before anyone wakes up, the large tank must be filled with fresh water from a distant pond – several trips to and fro until the tank is brimming with clean water. When Makhulu (grandmother) wakes up, had her bath and porridge then we can think about quickly washing up and starting the long walk to the local school, kilometres from the homestead.
The journey to the school is gruelling, quite a number of us fall in the dusty road that leads to the school building.

Time flies when we are here (school), with loads of information that really doesn’t address my purpose and vision let alone connecting them to the information that I get from this place. All I know when I am here, is all these subjects, which I believe are useful, but somehow placing me in a specific box, training me on a one-way line of thought which I am clearly not quite a fit, because this box won’t close, I am either too big or too small for it.
How do I connect all this information to who I am and why am I here? Wrapped up in thought, and before I know it, I am back at Makhulu only to find a pile of chores. Dishes are to be washed, food prepared, the pigsty cleaned, mud bricks to be made for the extra hut we are building and many more chores Makhulu has personally thought up so that at no point should I be found doing my homework, reading and writing (which I loved) let alone playing.
When the rooster announces the death of the day, even more work comes along with the darkness, the entire day is eventful – and exhaustion is an understatement when I try to describe how it felt when I eventually went to bed, leaving no room to pursue my dreams and vision, not even a little space to think of them.

Having experienced this…
my voice slowly piercing through the vicious challenges of our life time, I have written a curriculum that bears this human experience in an attempt to save that little girl/child that I once was, so that the little time she/he has at school becomes even more interesting and worthwhile.
I have also created a Stand Your Truth Platform, a beyond the classroom safe space of freedom for us to finally express our power, our voice in truth and in love, as we collectively create solutions to a better tomorrow for all.

The Curriculum that bears a human experiencer
Written by
Mandisa Mndelar
Stand Life Skills

Introduction to the “STAND” Life Skills

What is STAND?
The STAND Life Skills Subject proposes to be a comprehensive addendum to the educational system whereby Stand Your Truth will render a systematic approach to igniting the internal- imagination of students at all levels of the educational spectrum.

The STAND Life Skills Subject will be committed to impacting the lives of students through the development and implementation of life skills which emphasize the value of internal fortitude and self-worth, ultimately spearheading a movement of young leaders who act as change agents for their local and greater community societies.
Mirroring a higher-educational incubator, STAND will provide an environment for youth to discuss, learn and effect change within themselves, which ultimately will arm students with the capacity to effect change in the world beyond. Goal of the STAND Life Skills Subject is to increase emphasis on development of personal well-being, including self-worth. Balance in life among personal care, work and play that leads to satisfaction and personal growth which enables further positive impact on society.
Why Stand Curriculum & Why Now?

In addition to the standard educational curriculum, there has increasingly been a corresponding need for an inner/emotive curriculum which seeks to inform, strengthen and inspire the health and fitness of students’ inner imagination and self-esteem.

With more and more well-meaning parents stymied by the challenging workplace/career demands required to provide the child-student’s food/clothing/shelter, there is often too little time or energy left for such parents to adequately address the needs of the student’s other personal-developmental intangibles.

The STAND Life Skills Subject addresses and provides an organized mechanism by which this critical life-development void may be filled.
The Curriculum that bears a human experience:(Emotional Intelligence balanced with Intellect)
We do not impose authority on learners, for we not to treat them as functions rather than human beings, all has to come out of conviction not forced obedience, using our experience as guiding light not as their goalr
Our main asset is humanity.