New School Partnerships on the horizon (since 2019)

Kirsten Hofman, the deputy principal of Heinrich-Heine-Gesamtschule (HHGS) was one of the members of the delegation, which came to Cape Town in March 2019. She was looking for a partner school and met teachers from Soneike High School in Kuils River and Luhlaza High in Khayelitsha. No decision had been made during her visit. Later in the same year Birgit Komanns, English-teacher at HHGS came to Cape Town and attended classes in grade 8 at Luhlaza High School in Khayelitsha. She also visited Soneike High School in Kuils River. It was decided, that Luhlaza and HHGS fit very well and would start an exchange programme in 2020. According to the Covid19 pandemic the exchange of teachers and learners could not happen. But several events happened in Aachen to prepare the school for the upcoming partnership. Xola Kerswa, a gardener from Khayelitsha, built an insect hotel for the school garden of HHGS, the artist Uta Göbel-Groß created art-banners with learners according to themes of the SDG (one banner was sent to Cape Town) and the author Lutz van Dijk held a reading of his book “Themba”. The two schools are hoping to start with their exchange in 2022.
Soneike High is part of the Dutch school-network “Global Exploration”. In 2019 they hosted Dutch students from different high schools, one of these is situated In Valkenburg, close to Aachen. The schools plan to visit the Netherlands in 2020 also did not happen because of Covod19. Soneike is still looking for a partner school in Aachen, teachers and learners definitely want to visit Aachen for a few days, when in Valkenburg in 2022. Soneike is strong in the STEM subjects, therefore Ronel Baker, the principal of Soneike looking for a complementary school in Aachen.
Christiane Levold, principal of the Mies-van-der-Rohe College in Aachen, had taken the initiative during a private visit in 2019 and had met with the principal of the College of Cape Town and the head of the department of Design. During these meetings they had decided to start a partnership between the two colleges, starting with an exchange of teachers in 2020. Because of the pandemic this exchange also had to be postponed to 2022.