The United Apart SA campaign, on TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE and Sunday Times, asked South Africans to show us their Covid-19 lockdown life.

Many of the entries proved we had not lost our sense of humour, even while trying to stay fit at home and keep the kids busy. We loved every dress-up singalong, every carefully choreographed dance step, every art project and every sweaty sit-up in the garden. The 27 daily highlights videos showed you caring for each other and keeping up your spirits, celebrating big and small moments far away from friends and loved ones, and coming together as a nation.

The winner of our R5,000 grand prize is Midrand teacher Khensani Mabona, whose video entry (above) personified the spirit of the campaign: even though we were apart, and time seemed to pass ever so slowly in lockdown, we were still in this together.

“When I saw the competition for the first time, I really wanted to capture the lockdown spirit – how I was feeling then, being in lockdown. I thought I might not be the only one feeling that it’s endless,” she says.

She uploaded her entry just after it was announced that SA’s lockdown would be extended. “It took me a whole day to record. Then I sat down later on, taking segments [of the recording], chopping them up and deciding on the amount of time – it’s tricky to get across in one minute!”

But the lockdown also prompted Mabona – who teaches grades four to six – to apply her creativity in another way: she has launched a YouTube channel under her own name but titled Simply Put, where she is publishing five-minute tutorials for schoolchildren to help them bridge the gap in their lessons created by the lockdown.

“I’m focusing on five-minute lessons just to maximise the concentration span of children,” she says. “I take concepts and try to make them as fun and simple and short as possible while thinking of parents who don’t have data. The lessons cover 20 minutes in just five minutes.”

So, thanks to Mabona, pupils can already watch concise lessons in poetry analysis, the use of adverbs and more. A worthy winner indeed!

Watch an edit of all our daily winners in the competition:

Thank you to our sponsors

The United Apart SA campaign was made possible by our partnership with BrightRock, creators of the Change Exchange, giving you tips and tools to help you with life's big change moments.

Search social media for #LoveChange to find out more, follow BrightRock on Twitter, and read the following article:

We would also like to thank 27four, the leading independent SA-based provider of pooled multimanager investment solutions, whose support of the campaign helped us extend it past the first lockdown period and give prizes to our daily and grand winners.

Read more about 27four here.