As many who have had involvement with Gillespies over the years will know, the annual S6 trip to South Africa is a major event in the school calendar. This year, in two weeks time, 120 pupils and staff will travel to South Africa during the February Holiday.
Quoting from our school website: 'James Gillespie’s South Africa Project aims to provide a substantial link with Zwelibanzi High School in Umlazi township, Durban. Zwelibanzi is an urban school in KwaZulu-Natal with around 1300 pupils. JGHS students have been involved in fundraising for a number of projects in Zwelibanzi in recent years and there is now an annual visit by Gillespie’s students and staff to our partner school in Durban so students can see at first hand the projects they support. Some teachers and students from Zwelibanzi have also been able to travel to Edinburgh to visit us.'
Mr Alex Wallace (Former Headteacher), along with former pupils and parents, will be there to meet and greet those who are travelling, as they have been in South Africa for the past few weeks, progressing projects that were started in previous years.
Our students have been visiting local primary school in the past few weeks sharing details of the project with younger pupils. Primary pupils have also donated stocked pencil cases which will be presented as gifts to pupils at Zwelibanzi High School. As the new headteacher of Gillespie's I am keen to build on this wonderful link so that future cohorts of pupils in both our schools can benefit from this life changing experience. Many thanks to Alex Wallace for providing the drive and vision to develop this wonderful initiative.
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