Profile: Dani Favis – Inkwenkwezi Society (Profile)
by Jason Joseph

“I don’t know why... I don’t know who nominated me... us, but... it’s an honour!” says Dani Favis, recipient of the Rhodes University Community Engagement award for Society of the Year for Inkwenkwezi Society.
Favis, 3rd year Journalism student, has been a volunteer since the beginning of her 2nd year, and has since become treasurer and now Chairman next year of Inkwenkwezi (the society formally known as Shine), a society that is entrenched in a lot of community engagement.

“Community engagement is a big part of my Rhodes career,” says Favis, “we have four volunteer programs a week, I run one of them (that takes place at Samuel Ntsiko School)! It’s big.” Favis has never seen herself as a role mode before, “but because of my position, I guess I am... it’s scary” says Favis, “before the beginning of this year I didn’t think I had it in me to stand up in front of a hundred people and actually say something that they would want to listen to. But it’s been huge (especially) in giving me confidence, and making me feel like people want to hear what I have to say.”

“The response we get from volunteering is just incredible,” says Favis, “what we do is we work with one to two kids for a year, the same kids.” Sometimes the rewards are visible really early on: “At the end of second term, the teachers come up to us said: ‘listen, these kids are doing fantastically – we need to swop them- we need to get the other kids to get to their level.’ It was harsh because we lost kids halfway through the year, but it was amazing because we are actually having such an impact... you can think about the improvement, but you don’t see the extent of it.”

But it is not always sunshine and roses: Favis was supposed to work with only four kids this year, “but sometimes when volunteers don’t show up, you have to work with more, but ja... (Especially in third term) our volunteers just stopped pitching, but you have a responsibility to these kids, so you just take on more”.

“Our biggest challenge is actually keeping our volunteer base for a whole year.” Favis feels like she hasn’t given up much: “it is just one hour of volunteering a week... and ja, absolutely, I have gained so much from volunteering,” Favis says with a sense of satisfaction. And with a smile Favis adds: “when people say you learn a lot from your students, it is very true!”

Favis started at Shine at Rhodes – which is now know as Inkwenkwezi – and has been involved with community engagement even before Rhodes. “I used to collect money, just randomly for fun, then donate it,” she also worked at Cotlands and in High school “I used to Bake and sell stuff, and donate the money to SOS children’s villiage and the SPCA... it was quite fun.”

“Just do it, you wont forget the experience,” says Favis. “It is amazing when you leave the session and they just smile back... once we had an amazing session and covered so much ground, one of my kids actually winked at me at the end of the session... it just really improves my mood, makes my day.”