Matric Gift 2019
The 2019 Matric gift to the Boys' College was created by artists and Boys’ College staff members Michael Matthews and Herman Bezuidenhout over a twelve-month period from 2019 to 2020.
Due to Covid we were unable to find a suitable date to officially unveil the gift in the presence of the Matrics of 2019. However, we were fortunate to have an opportunity to do so on 15 February in combination with the Hope & Light Ceremony with the current Matrics of 2021.
Thank you to Andrew Jackson (Headboy 2019), Matthew Davies, (Deputy Headboy 2019), Muhammad Moola and Benjamin Servant who attended.
#HopeAndLight2021
Our Rector Celeste Gilardi has chosen #HopeAndLight2021 as our theme for the year to guide us as St Stithians College strives to be a beacon of light, hope and strength for our community and beyond.
We share our Path of Hope & Light video to remind our Saints Family that we are all bearers of light and purveyors of hope, and to inspire us to walk the path to recovery.
The rationale for the gift -
The iron construction represents a 'sugarbush' protea (Protea repens), or in Afrikaans 'suikerbossie', is a fitting symbol of the school motto: 'ONE AND ALL'. An indigenous plant where the flower heads are actually plant structures made up of many individual flowers. It is capable of being modified to suit different conditions and purposes and is also one of the most reliable proteas in cultivation. A powerful symbol for 'one and all' the school motto.
As Michael Matthews says: 'Intellectual, physical and emotional growth is central to education, students working together to enhance their future through unity of these elements is a powerful symbol that can be universally understood, as these are the skills needed for the future in education. The sugarbush protea, for the last 200 years has been a National symbol. On 19 February 1976 the Protea was proclaimed the official national flower of South Africa. The less popular 'Suikerbossie', indigenous to most South African provinces, is a hardy plant, lacking in popular aesthetic appeal, that has a powerful symbolical spirit - a spirit of hardiness and perseverance'.
