Reiservaringen van Marc Padberg In Zuid Afrika (SAEP augustus 2005).
Het verslag is in het Engels gesteld omdat het ook dient ter evaluatie aan de leiding van SAEP.
Experiences of a two-week-volunteer
In August 2005, I spent two weeks as a volunteer at SAEP in Cape Town. It is an experience I would not have wanted to miss and that I can recommend to everyone who is interested in contributing to a society that is in the delicate process of creating stability and progress for all its citizens after a era of cruel division and that is in this process experiencing successes, but also all sorts of setbacks. Short as two weeks may seem, the SAEP-projects in my experience provide a very good opportunity for getting to know a country and its less privileged inhabitants, the blacks living in townships, more in-depth than you could ever when traveling around as a tourist. The projects offer a perspective on the struggle of the blacks that gave me many insights in how people deal with poverty and harsh conditions: hope, ambition, initiative, joy about the good things that are around, and on the other hand anger, crime, fear and resignation. I don`t think I have been this close to these conditions so far in my life: instead of being an observer as a tourist, I became involved. While working, I actually felt myself many of the things the blacks are experiencing: I was touched by whom I met and what I saw.
SAEP provides many opportunities to make you useful on the one hand. I believe it has been very helpful that before the group of four that I was part of got there, we had already defined with SAEP what would be the core of our activities. In my case that was coaching one of the gap year interns. The coaching made it possible to relate on a personal level with Richard, 21 years old. We had several conversations and walks together in which we learned about each other and in which I tried to help him with questions about the problems he was experiencing, his personal development and his future study and work. Richard wants to study journalism and photography, so I established contact for him with the South Africa correspondent of my home newspaper: this appeared a/o to be an interesting source of potential contacts for him. I learned myself from the contact I had with Richard: about the patience needed, to let him feel at ease enough to start sharing; about how trust can grow etc.
On the other hand, many more opportunities are around if you open your eyes and talk with the people you meet. This is partly because of the advantage you have of bringing a new pair of eyes. When we were there, several unexpected things happened that called for action. What you can be sure of is that this will also happen a next time. For example, due to circumstances there was no driver available to drive interns and crèche volunteers to the township. So one of my colleagues and I started driving - which brought up the issue of a map of the township. Since that was not existing, we decided to start drawing one based on bits and peaces we were able to collect from different sources. Another example is the sink that was lying on the ground in a crèche, unused. Another colleague and I decided we wanted to make a construction so that it could be used with running water and a waste water connection. It cost us three times the time we expected, but we got it working. Yet another example is the group of interns. The four of us felt that we wanted to share our feedback with them about how we felt some of them were spending their time - hoping it would make them more conscious of what they were doing. Being an outsider, it is sometimes easier to confront people.
My conclusion is that primarily I learned a lot myself by being a volunteer: I did things I had not done before and I could use the project to try-out other things. For example, confronting the interns for me was a valuable experience. As was being confronted by them regularly: they are a group of smart and funny individuals at an age at which you like to challenge other people. This was good fun very often and sometimes difficult: how should I react to this? Whether our presence contributed to the project is a question others can best answer. My feeling is that during our presence we were certainly able to help out with keeping things going. Some of the things we did may also benefit the program afterwards. I found it very satisfying to be able to contribute on very different levels: from very practical (the sink, driving, playing with children in the crèches), to personal (coaching, feedback) and to organizational (thinking about how to further improve parts of the organization, e.g. fundraising). All in all, it is an experience I am very grateful for that I had it. Many thanks to SAEP for giving me this opportunity!
Download hier de reiservaring van Marja Wander.
