Jabulani Project

Skills Exchange


Jane Ansell (Zulu name: Sizekele)


(Monday 5th March)

So here I am, Monday 7.30am, making my way with Isaac to Umthombo - the street kids project. Since my arrival on Friday I feel I have already passed through many different cultures, time zones and not least age zones!

We arrived at Umthombo in the middle of the morning meeting - a mixture of mumblings of Zulu and English (not too dissimilar to Sleep Scotland team meetings!). Very soon Isaac was introducing me to various workers and we were discussing doing "sleep hygiene" work with the night staff. Even one worker who wasn't on shift until next week wanted to come.

Isaac's tour of the place and our chats with workers and smiles with the kids was a great introduction to Umthombo.

We left the project workers to finalise the training arrangements and went on to visit the new Jewish primary school. Isaac has certainly endeared himself to this community so they were keen for us to come to the school and we are already talking about linking them with a township school. The community are keen that before Passover they do a collection for some of the projects that the gap year students are involved in. I promised them to return one morning this week at 7am to do an hour on sleep hygiene with the school children's parents and the staff.

A bite of lunch at the "French-Zulu Centre" at 3pm looking forward to meeting with some of the Zwelibanzi High School teachers this evening.


(Tuesday 6th March)

Although the day started late for us and calmly, within no time Isaac rang to say he needed to get down to SISCO (street kids initiative) urgently to help the kids get food. These kids often lived in the drains and so had been almost drowned from the flooding.

Isaac spent the day at the project with Emma, Fiona and Nathaniel. In the evening he took Alex, Mimo and me there and what an amazing experience we had. It was a bit like slipping into "Oliver".

We entered into this old building lit by candlelight. Slowly we could make out all these young people who greeted us warmly. Someone had given the old building for now to rescue them from the floods outside.

You might well think this was going to be one of our saddest visits - kids rescued from sheltering in flooded drains. But soon these young people and children started to sing with such spirit and then the circle broke into dancing. We all joined in. How could you not? The atmosphere was electric!