Toastmasters Youth Graduation
On Saturday, 17 August, Margaret Hirsch attended the International Toastmasters Youth Leadership Graduation at Indaba Hotel, Fourways. This special day awards young female scholars from disadvantaged communities in Diepsloot and Cosmo City, who has undergone the Toastmasters Youth Leadership Programme. This programme is a 9 week course in which young ladies are taught how to be a Toastmaster and Public Speaker – how to address audiences, impromptu speeches, prepared speeches and various other leadership courses.
These girls have come along way since they started the 9-week course, dedicating themselves every weekend for 9 weeks, and their success was very evident in the manner in which they presented their speeches. The guests of honour were, Mrs Margaret Hirsch, who was also the keynote speaker, Harriet Hamens, Chief Financial Officer from U-Bank, Jenny Shiers who represented Toastmasters International and Buyisiwe Mabuya from the Department of Education.
The girls each spoke about their past experiences and lessons learnt during their 9-week course as well as from their lives. Thandi Ndlovu, who was the leader of the group, spoke about attitude and how attitude determines altitude. Various other speeches included, “Proudly South African”, “There is a journey in everyone’s life, called life”, and “Working hard for your success.” The girls also gave a testimony about how their lives had changed since joining Toastmasters. Each of them emphasised how Toastmasters had not only improved their personal lives, but also their education.
Mrs Margaret Hirsch addressed the girls and told the girls about her life as a child and how she was determined to make a success of her life. She also gave the girls sound advice about relationships, saying,” The man you marry will bring you either 99% happiness or 99% unhappiness.”
Margaret also gave the girls the following tips and advice about how to be a success:
You need to have passion
Never let a man control your money
Nothing comes easy…hard work is always essential
You need to focus on what you want to do and be. You can’t be everything to everybody
You need to persist through the hard times. A vision board should be part of your life, showing all your different goals and dreams
Margaret also praised South Africa for being the best country in the world – filled with wealth and abundance.
The girls took what Margaret had said to heart and loudly applauded their role-model.
Harriet Heymans from U-Bank spoke about ,”Dreaming Big” – you need to believe that you can achieve big and that you are the only person in your life who determines your success.
After graduation, Margaret explained about the Girls with Dignity project and all the girls were given their panypacks, which they accepted very happily.
It was a fantastic day and the lives of these girls have truly been changed by Toastmasters