National Youth Service, Seychelles
Year One of the National Youth Service: A Photo Essay
In this series, Olivier Le Brun presents images of the NYS site at Port Launay, the visit of President France Albert René and various Ministers during the construction of the buildings, the students meeting for the first time at the official opening of the NYS, training sessions of the animateurs - including an expedition to the island of Coétivy, the daily life of students in the clusters, agricultural activities, educational activities in the brothers-sisters clusters, fishing, recreational activities, as well as the official visits by Presidents Mwalimu Nyerere and Indira Gandhi.
National Youth Service: from Seed to Flower
Olivier Le Brun recounts the early history of the NYS, from the first proposals setting out the potential structure and form of the NYS, the first experimental camp and curriculum, and reflections a year after its establishment. As a result of the first experimental village, the government set up a number of NYS villages, which hosted young people for a two-year period in the ninth and tenth years of their education. This organisation succeeded in ensuring that nearly all young people in the country, girls as well as boys, remained in education until the age of 16 — latterly, 17 — which radically democratised the access of working-class children to education.
The opening of the National Youth Service Resource Centre, Port Launay, 17th November 1981
NYS Design and Construction - 40 Years On
Hubert Murray recounts how the subjects of design and construction were integrated into the NYS curriculum, with students learning by doing - working in groups to design classrooms, undertake technical drawings, building prototypes and then participating in the construction of the campus buildings. This was one illustration of how technical education and practical implementation of projects was used to advance broader social and political goals.
NYS, Work and Health project, March 1981
Glimpses and Inklings of a New Society: Seychelles NYS
In this section, Simon Henderson has collated an essay of fragments, reflections and memories of five people who worked at the NYS in varying capacities for different periods of time in the early 1980s when this extraordinary experiment in education and living differently in the world began. This is not the ‘last word’ on the NYS and how it attempted to propose a very different experience for the lives of young Seychellois between the ages of 15 and 17. Rather, it is an account of this real-life laboratory from the perspective of various teachers, animateurs and organisers.
Hydroponics project as part of the ‘Crop block’ at NYS
My Experience as a Volunteer with the Seychelles NYS, 1981
Kamoji Wachiira reflects on his experience as a volunteer at the NYS and on his role in instigating two sub-components of the ‘Crops Block’, namely hydroponics and energy-efficient stoves. Through these two sub-components, students learnt about these innovative approaches and built prototypes, thereby ‘learning by doing’. He also considers the cultural and political factors that enabled the NYS to come about.
FURTHER READING
Olivier Le Brun and Robin Murray, Seychelles National Youth Service Part 3 - One Year Later, 1982
See Olivier Le Brun, “The NYS, a revolution in education in the Seychelles”, in Robin Murray or the beauty of life, a photographic essay, 2019