Infinite Family’s Mission is to promote self-reliance—to augment what’s taught in the classroom and the home to help develop resilient, responsible, and resourceful students as they prepare for their lives as young adults and beyond.
Infinite Family brings additional role models, technology, and educational resources into the lives of South African teens. Infinite Family mentors help the Net Buddies build skills in five vital impact areas: communication, education, career preparation, technology literacy, and life skills. School becomes an area of their lives where their actions make a difference in a positive way, one of the few places where good decisions reduce uncertainty in their favor. Exposure to a broader range of adult experiences introduces new insights and alternative perspectives that motivate teens to make better decisions and create new opportunities, namely obtaining a tertiary education and qualifications that improve their economic situations.
Infinite Family engages teens in their own skills development processes by providing:
- Access to laptops and internet connectivity via our LaunchPads (the name we have given to our computer labs),
- Resources via our online platform the Ezomndeni Net (Ezomndeni is isiZulu for “everything related to family”), and
- Mentoring relationships that guide and inspire hard work and skills development even in difficult times.
Video mentoring builds on the transformation that teens are naturally experiencing as they evolve from children to adults, motivating and inspiring them to invest in themselves at this critical time in ways that will pay off to build better futures. We acknowledge that teens act increasingly independent and many will only perform successfully – in school or work – if self-motivated to do so. Video mentoring provides a supportive voice of experience, understanding, and suggestions at regular touch points along the way.
By taking charge of components of their daily lives and learning how they affect their long-term circumstances, teens learn critical life skills and, over time, begin to act with a future-focused mindset. Eventually, they understand that it is their responsibility to obtain the education and skills that result in a job delivering self-reliance and economic stability.
“She helped me to be self-reliant. Indeed, I believe because of my Infinite Family mentor I succeed beyond my expectations.”
~ Net Buddy Anathi
LaunchPads
Infinite Family’s Net Buddies do homework, conduct research, and attend video mentoring sessions in our LaunchPad computer labs that resemble the real-world workplace. LaunchPads are clean, quiet, brightly lit, and safe. They are designed to inspire and encourage teens to get their work done. There are privacy booths for video mentoring sessions and open workstations for teens to do research and homework. Infinite Family maintains and updates the laptops our Net Buddies use, as well as access to high-speed internet connections via three (3) South African corporate partners. In addition, our students are surrounded by visual aids that simplify critical rules and guides in English and math.
The Ezomndeni Net
Infinite Family’s Ezomndeni Net (aka “EZNet”) is our safe, secure online platform through which Net Buddies communicate with their Video Mentors, staff and each other.
As we learn from our Net Buddies and Video Mentors what they need to keep building skills, we add them to the EZNet’s Resource area for access by all members at any time. Current resources include:
Bursary database | Career video library | Steps to Self-Reliance curricula | SA School curricula (all grades/subjects) | Practice for Matric exams | 100+ digital books for English as a Second Language (“ESL”) | Video Mentor training material | Health & Safety materials
Relationships
According to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, “The single most common factor for children who develop resilience is at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult.”
The primary source of support for Net Buddies is their relationship with their Video Mentor, through their weekly video conversations (VCs). Having the individual attention of a caring adult who lives outside their community provides a wealth of support they may otherwise be unable to access:
- Shared experience and expertise related to careers and life that encourages and motivates them to tackle daily, weekly and ongoing challenges;
- Validation that they matter and can succeed;
- Trusted source of advice and guidance in communities where asking parents personal questions is not culturally acceptable, and who won’t “share their business” throughout the community;
- Opportunity to improve English by simultaneously seeing, hearing, speaking, reading and writing it in a relaxed, unpressured, and fun manner; and
- Someone who knows them well and can see the signs when they may need additional support.
Video Mentors help teens to build skills and develop habits that are beneficial in the work world. The first being an improvement in their ability to communicate effectively in English, which has a rapid impact on their performance in class: As their understanding improves, so does their school work and they begin to participate in class. This inevitably results in more positive attention from their teachers and creates a positive cycle where the student’s self-directed actions deliver improved results, build confidence and create momentum to continue.
One of the most liberating realizations for Black South African teens is that successful adults aren’t born knowing how to succeed or given the secrets along the way – that to be successful, most adults have to work very hard for a very long time, they stumble repeatedly, and often fail more than once. It is also reassuring for many Black South African teens to realize that they are not unique in their early life challenges and to see others who have overcome adversity, not in a glamorous stroke of lucky success but through step-by-step, day after day, year after year planning, goal setting, and hard work. When they hear stories of how their Video Mentors overcame hardships or bounced back from mistakes, they realize that they too can do the same, step by step.
This is the moment that changes the rest of their lives: achieving a Bachelor’s or Diploma qualification on their matric exam, after being told countless times they could not do so, they now know that if they work hard and with persistence, they can achieve or obtain what others say they cannot.
This earned success is what sticks with them through the trials and challenges they will face as they fight for their tertiary qualifications and they are more likely to eventually succeed when so many other first generation college and university students do not finish their post-secondary studies. Theirs will not be a straight path. But our alumni already know this and they have the resilience, resourcefulness and responsibility to push through, because they know that is what it takes for most people, everywhere to succeed.
Programme Evaluation
A critical part of our programme model is the monthly Net Buddy Performance Report. Fulfilling the required performance activities reinforces good habits, hard skills, and the attributes and values that our Net Buddy mentees are developing with their Video Mentors in preparation for the 21st-century workplace. More information about the Net Buddy