Back in 2002, our Founder made a commitment to the late President Mandela to build a school for girls. Her vision was, and still is to create a safe space to educate, nurture, to empower and of course, to inspire this next generation of leaders for South Africa, Africa and the World.  Since then, the school has continued to excel, not just academically but in all other aspects of their lives.  Many, if not all of our girls, have gone on to be leaders in their respective spaces.  The school has produced artists, doctors, musicians, social workers, psychologists, dancers, and our girls have penetrated every conceivable career space and are making an impact.

As a school, we know that excellent curriculum alone will not create the impact we want for our girls.  We continued to approach learning and teaching the O’ Way.  The O’ Way means putting our girls front and centre and doing whatever it takes to provide quality education. The O’ Way means:

• Doing whatever it takes to ensure that our girls achieve and they become the best that they can be, regardless of their circumstances;
• Putting our girls front and centre in everything we do;
• Removing barriers that hinder effective learning and teaching;
• Ensuring that, in our delivery, we leave no girl behind;
• Looking at the totality of the child; their spiritual, mental, health and creative beings by exposing our girls to quality extra curricula activities. We encourage our girls to to include an arts subject in their offering as it provides the necessary balance for students to self-express, allows crucial exposure to the intrinsic therapeutic value of the Arts
• Applying a Trauma Informed lens in all of our operations. As a Trauma informed Academy, we recognisee the pervasiveness of the effects of trauma on an individual and the system. Our primary goal, therefore, is to ensure that all services, interventions, and organisational culture and practices are aligned with understanding the impact of trauma across all areas of functioning. The trauma-informed approach supports recovery and aligns organisational culture so that all areas of the organisation respond “to the effects of trauma at all levels” as opposed to offering interventions or holding practices that are re-traumatising.
• The girls doing whatever it takes to ensure that they learn and achieve

We look forward to getting to know you and us working together to create a better world for our children.

~OWLAG Executive Director, Ms Gugu Ndebele