Student wins R25000 Bursary for action in her Community

Kiara Ramklass Wins  Amy Biehl Foundation 2012 Youth Spirit Award with her enke: Make Your Mark Community Action Project.

To make a difference, take an issue you want to change and combine it with something what you're passionate about, and then turn that into action. The result – simple individual acts that have a positive impact in communities. That is what enke: Make Your Mark participants learn and it seems to be a winning combination with participants winning recognition for their actions in the past year.This August, Kiara Ramklass, has won recognition for her Marimba Jam Project from the 2012 Amy Biehl Foundation Youth Spirit Awards.

Kiara's passion is music, the issue she wanted to change was poverty. She took that passion and with it created her enke Community Action Project (CAP) called Marimba Jam.  Kiara's Marimba Jam project comes from a growing consciousness that was nurtured at the 2011 enke: Forum, a week of leadership and entrepreneurship training that brings young South Africans from all walks of life to discuss issues that affect them and learn how they can take action.

Taking her anger at the injustice of some students never having the opportunities to learn to play a musical instrument, or to share the joy of making music together that fuelled her desire to shape a project which would enable them to do so, Kiara decided to take action.  Her vision included teaching fellow students how to play the Marimbas during her holidays, and organising a benefit concert to provide a platform on which these new musicians could perform. The funds raised through the concert would be used to buy Marimbas for the project. With support from her school, Wynberg Girls High School, and from enke: Make Your Mark, Kiara's vision has become a reality.

The Amy Biehl Foundation Youth Spirit Award is granted based on evidence of a nominee's initiative and dedication in service to others. The Award goes to young people who are already making a difference. Our hope is to challenge them to greater heights of service through the recognition of the Award and exposure to Amy Biehl's life and work.

Meghan Daniels, who won the Youth Spirit Award in 2011 with her enke Community Action Project, the Ilizwi Photography Club, spoke at the awards ceremony. Meghan said, "Youth in South Africa are defined in terms of deficit: what we are not instead of what we could be. The Amy Biehl Foundation, and many other organizations in South Africa such as enke: Make Your Mark, are countering this and telling the story of youth who have potential to inspire themselves and others, youth who are not waiting for anyone to bring about change but instead or are doing it themselves right now."