Katherine Zavala – IDEX’s Program Manager, Grassroots Alliances – is in South Africa on a site visit to our partners. She reports from the Eastern Cape province.
IDEX Program Director Katherine Zavala with AGF staff (in red) and Positive Health Champions
Today I went to visit IDEX Partner Angus Gillis Foundation (AGF) and accompany them on a community visit to Glenmore, a township in the Eastern Cape province.
Eastern Cape is known as the poorest province in South Africa, where two-thirds of the people are living in rural areas and lack access to available resources.
It is the final day of activities before the communities start their Christmas vacation. Many of them will travel far to visit extended family. Some will stay home.
But today is a day for reflecting on what was learned in 2011 and what their dreams are for 2012.
The ‘Edutainer’ Conundrum
This year was a particularly unpredictable year for AGF.
It started with the arrival of the new pre-school ‘Edutainer’ for Kalkeni Village, generously sponsored by the Nedbank Foundation. The Edutainer is a large container or room, which can be used for children’s education.
The arrival of the Edutainer was expected, but not so early in the year and it didn’t allow enough time to settle the designated location of this container. As a result, it was placed down without total consensus from the community members on its location.
Community members started to find the right location for this large container and figure out how to move it there. It wasn’t an easy process and there were times AGF staff wanted to get involved, but they ultimately decided to back off and let the process be driven and led by the local community members. This became a great learning moment for everyone.
“Our dream is in the future to be able to do things for ourselves,” says Mama Namslovo, Positive Health Champion from Ndlame and Kalkeni communities. “We can be self-sufficient and have our own programs. We hope to only look at AGF as someone that can advise us when we really need some support.”
A Safe Park for Children
After the meeting we took a drive around Glenmore to visit the new place that will become a safe park (playground) for children in this community. It originally was in someone’s backyard, but the owner of the house requested the safe park be moved as they had plans to extend their house.
The AGF Community Champions (these are women who are community leaders and usually will support up to 10 Self-Help Groups formed with the support of AGF) went through a process to ask the community to provide land for the safe park.
As AGF and the women from the communities are getting ready for their holiday vacation, they make final checks to see that the constructor has everything he needs for this safe park to be open for 2012.
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