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Phoenix High – Kreisgymnasium Heinsberg (since 2009)

The partnership of these two schools started in 2009, when the principal of Kreisgymnasium Heinsberg, a high school in the most western part of Germany some 40 kilometres away from Aachen, visited Phoenix High in Manenberg to support the project colOURful busSHELTERs, which just took place at Phoenix at that time.

Out of this first encounter a stable school partnership emerged and seven vice-versa exchanges took place! Four groups of learners from Heinsberg visited Cape Town and the school in Manenberg to work together with the South African learners in the following joint projects:

  • Fight against the Waterhyacinth (2009)
  • Garden of the Phoenix (2010)
  • Colourful Container (2012)
  • Benches and Tables (2014)

In June 2011 the first visit of seven learners and two teachers from Manenberg to Germany took place. The learners created a mural at Kreisgymnasium Heinsberg together with their German partners which shows the connectivity between the two schools. During the second visit of four learners and a teacher in 2013 the exchange students planted a huge flower bed on the central schoolyard of Kreisgymnasium Heinsberg. During the third exchange from Manenberg to Heinsberg the learners created a huge poster about all the projects that had taken place on both sides of the globe.

The exchanges stopped because of the fear of the Heinsberg parents according to the uprising violence on the streets of Manenberg and new Visa regulations for South African youth under 18. In 2019 a Heinsberg teacher visited Phoenix again and it was agreed, that 2020 the exchanges should continue. Due to the Covid19-pandamic the planned visit could not take place.