One of my three best Zulu friends here is my coworker Zodwa. She is an amazingly strong woman who runs the Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Program and is someone I try to spend most of my time at work with. Because I am always working on OVC stuff I usually get my wish. Anyways, today we were talking about some struggles she has been having with the new Child and Youth Care Worker program. The US Embassy is paying for a series of trainings for 23 community workers to learn about becoming Child and Youth Care workers. I would define their job description as volunteer social workers for children.
Her main problem is that you give all these people skills and get them out there in the field (our surrounding community) and then they find big problems and there is literally nothing they can do about it. For instance, one worker lives next to an 11 year old girl whose parents have passed away and she lives with her Gogo (Grandmother). She doesn’t go to school, is perpetually filthy, and spends her days watching over 2-3 yr children who she may or may not be related to. For the outside observer it seems like she Gogo is abusing the girl and not allowing her to go to school. Once the worker took the girl’s clothes and washed them for her and then returned them and the Gogo got so angry about who was washing her Granddaughter’s clothes etc. etc. This is one of the times where I immediately think “what would I do if this was America?”. This is a reflex that almost makes the situation worse to stomach because in a country where resources are plentiful the situation would be handled immediately. First we thought of contacting a Social Worker in town. However, apparently their response time is about A YEAR so that is out of the question. An 11 year old was gang raped in our area months ago and we reported it to them and they still haven’t shown up…We don’t have any resources for children (aka $$ or a safe house) or a Social Worker we are kind of stuck. Our next option was at least to go reason with the Gogo. However, apparently she just screams at people and that won’t work. The best thing I could think to do was to bring a Police Officer with them when they talk to the Gogo. Of course the Police aren’t going to do anything, but I figured they could just stand around in the background looking imposing so that we could get our point across to the Gogo that what she is doing ISN’T right. Siiigh. And that’s the best that we can do. It makes me crazy!
Zodwa made the point that the new workers feel helpless because if they can’t even give the kids soap to wash their clothes and so they feel that they are essentially doing nothing. I responded uncharacteristically and went into this long discussion with her about how people in our area (my village) have become so used to death and children living on their own and supporting themselves that they forget the importance of a solid and caring adult in a child’s life. I think that an important thing that these workers can do is to just check in with the kid and get them to trust them and then be there when the kid needs them. Just every day walking by their houses and just saying “hi” and asking how the kid is doing, how was school, etc. Simple as that. I was encouraging her to stress to her workers that just being a solid role model in a child’s life can be life changing. I forget sometimes that things that seem to be common sense to me (role model=good) isn’t always to people who haven’t had the opportunities I have (like an excellent education and an interest in reading about research studies). My speech was a whole lot longer about that and a little rambling, which is why I say it was uncharacteristic of how I speak with my coworkers—I always want to get my point across so I keep it short and sweet. Apparently I am passionate about this, to a near psychotic level maybe, hehe. I just love children and it makes me so sad to see how they have to live here when a parent passes. I can’t imagine growing up running my house at age 9. It’s astounding. This is when I had this “AHA” moment. Let me explain, I am applying to graduate schools and kind of stepping around what I want to concentrate in within the field of Public Health. I’ve decided to concentrate on child health. Looking back it kind of seems like a no brainer, but I guess I just had to get there on my own time.
The other part of our conversation was pretty sad, if that wasn’t sad enough. It looks like there are a lot of upcoming struggles for my organization. Right now our main donor is finishing up their cycle with us at the end of the year, and try as I might I cannot find a donor who will commit that kind of funding ($60,000/year). This means that most of our employees will lose their jobs and that most programs will cease to exist. However, the same donor keeps hinting that they will fund us again, but this particular donor is like a middleman and gets their funds from others. This means if they don’t get those funds (most likely because of the economy) they can’t fund us even if they want to! I think it’s unfair that they just don’t make up their minds already because it’s already October and all my coworkers (and the people who receive our services) are depending on us. ARGHHH. We have no emergency plan. I have been fundraising around the clock to replace this but it doesn’t seem like it will happen while I am here. It just makes me want to break down crying and/or to run away from work screaming. I was talking to my other best friend at work (and I live with her) Musa and she made the point that I have been working around the clock on this and there is really nothing more you can do at a certain point. You can’t do it all, I guess. I do have to comment on a strange phenomenon, however. Whenever we seem to be at the edge of disaster (for instance, not have enough money to finish a building) we get a huge grant—like the MTN money we got. I’m not a religious person my any means, but this does make me feel like someone is out there watching over us. Haha.
It just feels that we are farther behind at my work (even though we have the new buildings and several new programs that I have been directly involved with) then when I started, especially if we lose this funding. , I know that I have “done a lot of good work” while I’ve been here but I feel like when I came to my organization it seemed to be running great! and now it is falling apart. I know I can’t fix everything and I know we have some new programs (like the income generating program) that seem to be coming along nicely that are directly because of me. However, I can’t help but feel like a little bit of a failure/chump.
Other than that—As for me, besides working on fundraising and the OVC stuff with Zodwa, I have been consumed with drawing a world map mural in the youth club room. Zodwa pointed out to me today that this will be a sweet edition once the World Cup comes through and the kids want to figure out where all the countries that are playing are located. Hooray! This didn’t even occur to me. Zodwa watched us lose (us being South Africa) to Hungary yesterday and was pretty psyched to see where it was in the world. Today I was painting America and Zodwa kept saying that the mural was “AWESOME” because I was painting America and that is what Americans say all the time…she is so right. I will post pictures when I’m done. Since I drew it from scratch it has taken about 25 hours so far…it better look nice. Just sayin’.
So as of Sunday, I only have 6 months. This is amazing to me. I never thought I would make it this far! I feel like I have a lot more work to do before I go.Since my time coming up includes an agriculture training and a final Peace Corps training, me visiting another volunteer to help her with fundraising and building a brochure and website at her site, and my Christmas/New Years vacation I won’t have a lot of time left to do actual work…maybe 4 months. That is pretty crazy. I must say that I feel ready to move on and am excited about the next chapter in my life and am anticipating getting on with it, even though I will miss my coworkers and village dearly. Also, my Dad is thinking of coming to visit me right when I finish, which would be AMAZING! If you know him and see him around, do me a favor and encourage him to pay me a visit. ☺
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This is a hopelessly American reaction -- "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." OOPS! Ghandi (not a noted American, last time I checked up on him) said that!
I have a hopelessly American (read "optimistic") reaction to this story, much like the advice you gave to Zodwa, in the face of her discouragement. As you said, in your blog,"People forget the importance of a solid and caring adult in a child's life". Just walking by and saying "how are you doing?", caring. noticing. noticing that the struggle actually exists in this child's life, even tho you can't relieve the struggle aspect of that life.
I DO think that this is important and that these child workers should have faith that this is important.
The fact that there are 23 people who are going to go out and talk with a filthy girl in filthy clothes, a girl who is her grandmother's prisoner, about how her day has been, could be encouraging to that girl and girls like her. The longest journey of 1000 miles always begins with the first step. The journey of suffering in this girl's life began with small steps,and her journey away from suffering could begin with the smallest of steps, also.
In the situation you all find yourselves in -- you are powerless to take big steps to fix big problems, it would be easy to just give up. But a house is built with countable bricks, and goodness and protection can be built, one brick at a time, as well. Don't "do nothing", I'd want to say to those 23 people. "Do SOMETHING", even if doing something is just dropping by.
What would Nelson Mandela do? What would Nelson do? What DID Nelson do? How many years was he in prison? 18? 25? I don't remember. But it almost seems as if he lived each day, each year, NOT as if his whole life was going to be lived in prison, but as if there was a reason to live each day and each year, is if something would "come of it" if he believed that something would.
Is it possible for Zodwa and the 23 workers to think that something will come of the smallest effort?
I think of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the woman in Kenya who planted trees and taught other women to plant trees. How small and insignificant is one seedling tree? How could you ever think that thousands of women across Kenya could reforest a nation with puny, four-inch high seedlings?
Or, the women of Liberia, whom I need to learn more about by seeing the movie "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". They did something to resist the army of Samuel Taylor, which was conscripting and killing their children-- they did a sit-down strike or something, and helped to bring the civil war to an end in Liberia. ( I need to see this movie and learn more facts about what they actually did).
It just seems that the 23 people can be helpful just by BEING there. That if no one knows what children and their families are going through,there will be absolutely no hope that anything can done, but if 23 people know and see, some of those 23 people will combine their frustrations and their desire for good to make something happen that hasn't been thought could happen before those 23 people arrived on the scene.
That is, as I said at the beginning, perhaps a hopelessly American notion -- optimistic and all that. But, then, here is Nelson Mandela, and there is Ghandi. "Be the change you want to see in the world", he said. And you ARE and Zodwa IS, and those 23 people WILL be.
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