Part of the game

Young people, having parents with enough money, might think it normal to go into projects like American Field Service (AFS). You pay and then you can go wherever you want to participate and to learn. 

Older people having had a wonderful career, with a life behind them full of learning, working, helping other people, sometimes get in such a project too. You won’t find a lot of them. They think they will be needed somewhere, like in a school in South Africa, Hluhluwe.

They think people managing projects in foreign countries will have a clear insight in how things work in a country, what politics mean, how the economy flourishes or doesn’t, what social life means and how blacks and whites in this country behave, among each other, in group, at home and when they are somewhere else. As the work will be in education, they think that this staff will know a lot about the school, the primary school of Phumlani.

For these older people it may be weird and difficult to discover they have to find out themselves. It is incredible to believe that the project has no project.

But they get going. 

They find out that English is the first public language and that it may be important to do some language activities with the learners. They find out there are pretty many children who can't read of write, even at the age of 13 years old. So they start some remedial teaching. EMPOWERMENT is the motto.

They feel good when some materials and tools are available. And Live4Now has some.

They can’t believe that the school is being visited by a lot of white people, week after week, to be there to help. You can't deny medical help and information are indispensable. But giving presents to the school that will never be used, like some computers, sounds odd.

Why do white people choose schools like this? Do they think charity will empower the black people? Do they think presents will empower them?

Do they think when the children tell their misery in front of a European audience, and with cameras clicking and hands clapping, it’s the right thing to do?

Giving words to their sadness and misery, yes. Of course. When people can tell something about this, they are relieved. Clapping hands, and clicking cameras, no. ‘But it is part of the game,’ one of the teachers said. The game of begging and keeping people dependent.

As a conclusion we can say that the people themselves should use their power. In case some help is given, only structural help related to bigger organisations, preferably official and public, not private, seems to be the better choice.