Next year, while most of WHBHS’s seniors will be happily adjusting to the hustle and bustle of college life – Hayley Bester will be enjoying a gap year in South Africa, bettering the world through her helping hands and humanitarian work.
While living in the South African village of Cape Town, Hayley will be participating in a yearlong program with Gap Year South Africa in association with Hillsong Church in order to help underprivileged children improve their daily life and hold hope for a better future.
Promptly following labor-day Hayley will embark on her biggest adventure thus far, saying goodbye to WHB’s “sheltered little bubble,” and welcoming in an opportunity to “broaden [her] horizons and return as a new person.”
Although she’ll miss her parents and younger brother, her father is an immigrant from the area and his family lives nearby – which was Hayley’s original motivation and influence to participate in this program.
While away she will be involved in an “outreach program for poor and destitute children in South Africa, to work with them in sports, education, and hygiene.“ “I am most excited to experience a different culture and acquire a greater understanding of the way the world works,” Hayley said.
Through all her hard work, Hayley looks forward to the rewarding experience of teaching, learning and living – and the opportunity to learn to surf in “one of the top surf spots in the world.”
According to HS guidance counselor Ms. Probst, “for the right student, a gap your can be a great experience, and research shows that that students who take a gap year perform better than students who go straight to college from HS.”
Next year when Hayley’s worth-wile experience comes to an end, her ambition will continue to thrive, as her college enrollment has been deferred to the fall of 2014. Hayley will then be “attending Baruch College, studying math with a minor in finances, and living in New York City.”
As graduation rapidly approaches and the future holds endless hopes and dreams, Hayley is eagerly awaiting her departure. “Although South Africa isn’t a third world country, it will still be a very different way of life, and one that I am not used to living,” she said.