Activities

Community Service:

 

Hope WorldWide, Khayelitsha
Since 1994, Hope Worldwide South Africa has been involved in community-based HIV/AIDS care, support and prevention efforts.  Students volunteered to work with a variety of their programs:  Care & Support for People Living With HIV/AIDS, Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), HIV/AIDS Prevention & Risk Strategies, Counseling & Testing and Men As Partners. 

  • The Care & Support group traveled in township taxis to various TB and AIDS clinics, interviewed a long-term support and hospice worker and visited patients with AIDS in their homes in Khayelitsha. 
  • The OVC group initiated art projects in Kids Club, an after school program that allows children infected or affected by AIDS to escape the burdens of their everyday lives.  In one project, township children took photographs of one another; on their second visit students delivered the color photographs as well black and white copies for the children to decorate with watercolors, crayons, stickers and other art supplies.* 
  • Counseling and Testing volunteers visited a clinic, learned about stigmas and cultural taboos that affect AIDS education, and visited a refugee camp for immigrants displaced in the xenophobic township violence. 
  • The Prevention group learned about international funding for HIV/AIDS programs, including the effects of restrictive policies on the spread of the disease.  They also visited CATS, an after school program that provides a safe haven for teens in which safe-sex practices are taught through theater, dance and song.     
  • The entire class attended a Men As Partners meeting in a shebeen in Khayelitsha, where we observed an ongoing men’s group, a presentation from the Human Rights Commission and the first ever meeting with the Chief of Police about police corruption. 
  • The class also worked at the Youth Day commemoration (a national holiday to remember the Soweto Uprising, in which 600 students were killed), sponsored by the Prevention group. 

*Note: Hope does not allow pictures to be taken of their clients (while our photo project was approved, we are not allowed to display the results).  Consequently, there are few photographs of our work at Hope and the only ones we have included on this site are general photographs in which children cannot be identified.

 

Rehoboth Age Exchange & G.H. Stark Centres

Hanover Park is a gang infested area in Cape Flats, just outside of Cape Town.  Because of the extreme poverty, the elderly are often abused or neglected and their old age pensions of 900R per month (about $125) are redirected to other members of their families.  In this environment exists a lovely home for the aged, Rehoboth, that has independent living quarters, day care for dementia patients, assisted living and hospice care.   We spent 2 days at Rehoboth,  volunteering in the Iris (the dementia) room, in hospice and at Olympiatrics (their sports day).  Both staff and residents were very welcoming; staff members gave lectures on hospice care, dementia and caring for the elderly in Hanover Park, while one resident sent us home with a box of muffins. 

 

Youth With A Vision, Dennilton
Dennilton is about 2 hours outside of Johannesburg, in the middle of nowhere.  Started by Cynthia and Jabu Nkosi, and now in partnership with the LA based organization NextAid, Youth With A Vision is creating a community to combat issues of HIV/AIDS, child abuse, prostitution, teen pregnancy and the extreme poverty facing many of the local residents.  After learning about the various programs Youth With A Vision sponsors and touring the buildings designed by NextAid, we spent the morning planting palm and orange trees in a garden that provides food for the compound and local child headed households.  (Their soil is the rockiest most of us have ever seen, but we persisted).  Afterwards, we were fed a wonderful meal and entertained with dance, poetry, rap and drumming.  At the end of the day, we were able to distribute beach balls, art supplies, t-shirts and other donations and enjoyed some time with various community members.  In their journals, each student wrote that they wished we could have spent more time working at Dennilton.

 

Fundraising and Heavy Lifting
The spirit of our fieldwork started before we left for South Africa.  Several students helped to raise money for the organizations we visited; in addition, many others purchased and/or solicited goods to bring along.  Suitcases bulged with art supplies, games, school supplies, magazines and over 1500 pens.  Through these efforts we were able to donate funds and supplies to Youth With A Vision, Rehoboth and Hope.  In addition, we donated 1000 pens to Thembani Primary School in Langa, an institution that will soon become partners with the CSULB Department of Human Development in an email-pal program.