Our trip leader, Pete Johannsen, is on the board of the
Kliptown Youth Program,
whose motto is, "From
Poverty to Opportunity," which seems perfectly appropriate.
Started by a group of young men who grew up in Kliptown, KYP
provides tutoring, arts classes, and a sense of community, for some of
the youth of Kliptown.
Note: The terms below are the terms that were used during Apartheid and
are still used today when describing the past and present.
Let's back up a bit. Under Apartheid, people were removed from their
homes and relocated to ethnic townships -- Africans (Bantu) in one, Indians
in another, Coloureds (mixed race) in a third.
The townships were supposed to be separate, but equal, but in practice were
most definitely separate and unequal.
Soweto is a large, predominantly (98%+) black township, officially part of Johannesburg, but nearly an hour outside of the city center.
Today it is a thriving city, composed of many different neighborhoods.
Some are extraordinarily wealthy, while others are devastatingly impoverished.
Kliptown is among the most impoverished -- unemployment is at nearly 80%.
KYP helps children succeed in school -- somewhere between 80 and 90% of
the KYP students who take their "matrics", the exams that let you graduate
high school, pass.
Several go on to university.
The alumni remain engaged in the program.
As we enter the KYP facility, we are given the most amazing welcome -- children
and staff line the walkway and sing enthusiastically as we arrive.
Everyone on our trip had been given paired with a "penpal" from KYP --
mine was Xoli (pronounced Ko-li, with a distinctive Xhosa click that I
can pretty much replicate, but it took work),
who manages the IT services at KYP.
Xoli wasn't around on Monday, so I didn't get a chance to meet him until
Wednesday.
Most of the students and staff at KYP speak at least three languages and
sometimes four or more.
Everyone speaks English.
I believe some also speak Afrikaan.
The default language of the area is isiZulu.
There are also a fair number of folks whose native language is isiXhosa
(pronounced click/Cl-oh-za).
As South Africa has eleven official languages, I'm willing to bet there
are instances of every language in the community.
Everyone easily transitions between the different languages -- it is humbling
to experience.
Our introduction took place in one of the classrooms, where
a few of the students introduced themselves to us, told us how old
they were, what they were studying and what jobs they were planning
on doing when they graduated.
Then, we were treated to a performance of the
gumboot dancers -- absolutely
amazing!
The leader of this program is one of the KYP founders, Thando -- a gifted
singer, dancer, and actor with more energy, passion, and enthusiasm than any four
middle school students, is clearly an inspiration to all who know him!
We met up with our penpals on Wednesday at the Apartheid museum and then
together, we all headed back to KYP.
Xoli is 26 and is himself a graduate of KYP.
He grew up in Kliptown and for awhile had an apartment outside of Kliptown
and was working in finance.
However, in his words, at some point he had to choose between money and
happiness, and he chose happiness, moved back to Kliptown, and joined
the staff of KYP.
He has also started a record label and wants to run a restaurant.
In addition to teaching basic computer literacy and programming to the
kids of KYP, he offers computer literacy courses for the adults of
Kliptown.
If any Microsoft folks are reading this and have access -- they are running
Office 2007 at KYP -- I'm sure they would love donations of more recent
software!
(Although, we should probably make sure that their hardware infrastructure
is capable of running newer versions -- they have a computer room with a bunch
of PCs, a large collection of XO's, and a new set of 20 chromebooks.)
There were two major activities that afternoon -- an art project and home
visits.
The art project, led by Meadowbrook teachers Caroline Kurman, Roseanne Beard,
and Kerstin Johnson, was an identity project, designed to give the students
a chance to get to know each other better in a non-threatening manner.
The basic idea is that each of several colors represent different aspects of
what helps us create our identity: family, friends, education, interests,
gender, culture, and the things we "have".
The students were all provided with lots of colored paper, scissors, and glue
and asked to create a picture that showed who they were.
It was fascinating to see the pictures emerge -- as I walked around
the room the pictures told stories of each student.
I'm enclosing some sample pictures and then the "quilt" created by
all the images. I encourage you to look carefully at the ensemble of
pictures and see if you can
guess which colors corresponded to which of the themes mentioned above.
(I've put the color key at the
bottom of the page.
After the art project, the KYP students who lived nearby took their penpals
(and the penpals of other who lived further away) to their homes.
I accompanied two groups of students whose KYP students lived close to
each other.
I'm struggling to find the right words to capture this experience.
Suffice it to say that all of us were deeply moved by how little space
it takes to make a structure a home.
Upon reflection later, practically everyone commented on the importance of
positivity over material possession; we all took inspiration from our
new friends' attitude and strength.
We spent much of Thursday with our penpals outside of KYP, so that's
reported on elsewhere.
I'll wrap up with our last day at KYP.
In preparation for the trip, each Meadowbrook student in grades K-5 had
selected their favorite book and then purchased a new copy to send with
us.
Each of those books had a book plate identifying the student who had
selected the book.
In addition, families donated piles of other books, and yours truly
brought a pile of programming books -- HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, etc.
Three of the books I ordered had not arrived when I left, so I'll probably be
shipping more books off -- if you have books you think might be appropriate,
let me know!
For the book project, Ms. Kurman had photographed each student holding his/her favorite book and turned it into a short video. We took groups of kids to see the video and then let them select a book and wander off to the library to read with our students.
Then it was time for the beginning of the end -- Friday afternoons are arts and sports time -- a bunch of Meadowbrook and KYP students played netball, other students were in dance classes and/or drumming classes. Then everyone gathered around for some group singing,
and this led to an exit, to mirror our entrance -- everyone lined the walkway and
sang and clapped and danced as we all walked out with our penpals.
Then something truly remarkable happened (and Pete said he'd never seen
this happen before): the entire KYP community followed us out to our
bus, singing the entire way.
The hugs and tears and waves and high fives and joyous singing are undoubtedly
the strongest memory I have of this trip.
I don't think there was a dry eye on the bus as we drove away.
- Black: Family
- Purple: Friends
- Blue: Education
- Yellow: Culture
- Green: Interests
- Red: Gender
- Orange: Stuff
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