2013; a begining

2013 began in Johannesburg with a warm welcome from Ria our designated guide. We then had a two day whistle stop tour of the Aparthied museum, Soweto township and Mandela’s house. Mario from Africa Ensha, a local gospel choir, who was raised in Soweto let us see the Township in detail. Through Mario exciting discussions began of a fund raising concert to take place in Johannesburg in March in aide of the Jabulani Project. We left Johannesburg in high spirits however with a gross hangover thanks to Ross (Fiona’s South Africa cousin).

The following descriptions are a few of the highlights with which we have in Durban.

Unfortunately our start to Durban was met with the tragic news of Xolani’s (a Zwelabanzi high school student) death. It was heart breaking to witness the tragic loss of such a young life due to the pressure on young people in Umlazi (a township outside Durban) to do well in Matric, in order to stand any chance of escaping the insufferable poverty that the live in. As a consequence of this tragic loss, we were invited to attend the funeral and burial. Words cannot describe the magnitude of a Zulu funeral. The gospel singing, the dancing, the congregations participation in both was profoundly powerful and touching and an extraordinary example of Zulu culture. The warmth shown to us by the Makhathini family in their hour of need was truly humbling and they will stay in hearts for ever.

Alex introduced us to a Crèche in Umlazi. It cares for children from the age of a few months to 5yrs. Our work there was incredibly rewarding, being able to help look after tots who can only fall into one category of cuteness personified. The force of nature behind the crèche is a woman called Pinkie. She called us on our arrival a gift from God. It is a basic facility with very few resources but run by people with such huge hearts. To have the opportunity to spend time with these joyful toddlers was special for us all. Pinkie’s ambition to extend the crèche will hopefully be a project that Jabulani can participle in, as it will help these infants have a positive start in life.

We were invited by Lucky to visit his home in Burlington, a shack town 40mins from Durban. Lucky is a 24yr old man, whose mother died when he was 13 and never had his father as a presence in his life. He lives with his sister who is HIV positive and who is seriously ill, his two nieces and his own daughter. His younger brother also lives in the one bedroom shack, and he suffers from a drug addiction to Wonga, a highly addictive drug present in South Africa. Lucky works 12hr shifts for R50, the equivalent of about £4. He has to travel for up to 2.5hrs on khumbis to get to work. Despite the abject poverty Lucky has to live in, the responsibility of being the only wage earner in his family and the awful situation his siblings are in, he has the incredible capacity to retain a positivity and zest for life. His laugh is infectious and his motivation to better his life has been a lesson to us all and one we are unlikely to forget.

We were also given an opportunity to work with SISCO. They are a street kid’s organisation who rely purely on charitable donations and voluntary support. Their aim is to seek and rescue children from the street through their outreach programme.  The children have a host of problems ranging from drug issues to backgrounds of abuse. They have a centre where they can offer shelter and food. They do not own the centre but they have been allowed use of it temporarily. The owner is now threatening to sell it from under them putting at serious risk their ability to provide shelter. On occasions they simply have no food to feed the children. They work with Social Workers to assess the children with the ultimate aim of reuniting these children with their families. The bulk of our work with SISCO consisted of a series of meetings to try and help the organisation put together a structure that will help them to operate more effectively. We ran a workshop with them to try and seek ideas from them as to how best to move their organisation forward in conjunction with Jabulani. We believe the work shop went well, however in subsequent days we realised their organisational skills still needed huge improvement. Our final meeting with them was a constructive one and hopefully the volunteers that follow us will be able to work successfully with SISCO who are certainly trying to do very important work.

During our first tour of the SISCO centre and surrounding area we were introduce to another local organisation called House of Hlonipha (HOH) and as a result we have started building up a new relationship with this volunteer group. In short the aim of these dozen or so volunteers is to take kids form the Albert Park and surrounding area and do the following programmes, Life Skills, Arts & Crafts, Sport & HIV/Aids awareness. On the back of a meeting with SISCO & HOH we helped fund a leafleting session with HOH. Meeting on an early Thursday evening to help turned out to be a good laugh with the girls saying ‘PHOTO’ pretty much every 5 minutes. Due to the fun had a strong relationship between the two groups appeared to have been developing which was lovely to experience.  However along with the fun, as often happens in these heavily deprived areas, came a touch of heartache. Whilst walking the streets, cared for and watched over  by our local black ‘guides’ we came across a 7yr old street kid, no shoes and his pockets filled with empty plastic bottles, who was high as a kite on sniffing glue. Although an entertaining young kid you couldn’t help but feel for his horrific circumstances and what possible chance he has of improving his life. Through some local advertising two sessions of sport were organised on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, however both were cancelled for some very dubious reasons. One of the many things we have learned in our time in Durban is that organisational and planning skills are somewhat lacking, so although this relationship is new and a bit bumpy so far, should this develop into what it could be would be hugely beneficial for both the Jabulani Project, HOH and of course the main stakeholders, the kids.