Samsung Electronics South Africa, delivered  a Solar Powered Internet School (SPIS) to the Chief SW Nhlapho Secondary School in Dundonald, Mpumalanga.

The Executive Mayor of Chief Albert Luthuli Municipality, Ms B.P. Shiba, attended the SPIS handover ceremony today, along with the Department of Education’s acting District Director, Mr P.P. Magagula and Head of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics South Africa, Mr Pitso Kekana.

Many communities facing economic and geographic challenges often have little or no access to electricity and Samsung designed the SPIS with these issues in mind. The units come completely self-contained with solar generators and wireless communication, providing unlimited access to technology, communication and information as long as there is sunlight to power the solar panels, digital cellular network or satellite connectivity. This initiative is part of Samsung’s Corporate Citizenship programme, which seeks to provide educational material and connected classrooms to disadvantaged communities.

Chief SW Nhlapo Secondary School was established in 1994 and currently has 643 learners. In 2014 the school obtained an 81.03% pass rate, producing the highest number of matric passes in Dundonald. The pupils of this school possess an incredible amount of dedication and perseverance and the school is geared towards advancing the surrounding community. The secondary school was crowned as the proud winners of a national competition called the “2012 Youth Citizens Action Programme”, where learners were challenged to demonstrate empowered active citizenship.

The Chief SW Nhlapo High School presented a road safety campaign which tackled a number of challenges they faced outside their school. The campaign generated awareness for learners to make use of the pedestrian crossings and have the boundaries of their roads fixed. In addition, the learners approached local traffic police to assist with taking non-roadworthy vehicles off the road, which is one of the main contributing factors to road accidents. This school demonstrated that hard work and persistence is a reward on its own. “The school’s drive and enthusiasm displayed in their zeal to make the road safety campaign a collective achievement, further gives us faith that they will indeed make a success of the SPIS”, concludes Kekana.