A note from our newest intern…

I arrived in Cape Town about two weeks ago, after making the long journey from Seattle, Washington, and absolutely love it here! I am so excited to jump on board with Michelle and Marieke and join the Siyaphambili OTSK team as their second intern.

Cape Town itself is a rich and diverse city and I cannot wait to explore it for the next few months! I am greeted with friendly faces from the moment I get on the mini bus in the morning to when I step into the door at Beth Uriel (where I work during the day) and again when I venture home through the city in the afternoon. Although sometimes the locals laugh at my accent and choice of words, it is all in good fun and luckily I have learned the important ability to sit back and laugh at myself.

The first day of my internship was last Monday and I arrived at Beth Uriel in the morning. Michelle had just spent 6 weeks working in the UK so Marieke and I sat down with her to hear how her trip went and so that they could update each other on the development of the program. I immediately noticed the passion and excitement in Michelle and Marieke’s voices as we discussed the mentors and mentees and brainstormed the future of Siyaphambili. I had many questions and they didn’t hesitate to answer them. I got a good feel for where the program is at now and the direction that it is heading.

The next few days I spent getting to know Beth Uriel (introducing myself to the wonderful staff and several of the men that live there), learning more about Siyaphambili, and orienting myself around Observatory (Obz for short) where B.U. is located. Marieke and I went out to lunch at Cocoa, the delicious café up the street, but right away she claimed no responsibility if I got addicted to it. A week later and I am already hooked!

Later in the week I went with Marieke up to Heatherdale, a Children’s home in Athlone, where a few of Siyaphambili mentees live. We met with three young people who are interested in becoming mentees next year. Marieke briefly explained to them how the mentorship program works and what its purposes are. It was inspiring to see their excitement in getting involved in the program.

Currently I am researching different fundraising techniques, working on developing the volunteer program, and assisting Marieke in meetings with mentors and mentees. I cannot say it enough; I am so excited to be involved with this program and thrilled to be working with such passionate people making a difference in the lives of youth. It is going to be a great few months!

From our intern…

Thursday July 1, 2010

To start my day we established I would meet Michelle at 9am in Muizenberg. I arrive and we drive to Khayelitsha. I am excited to be going there – I like getting out of the urban area of Cape Town and Observatory and I was excited to being visiting another children’s home.

Khayelitsha was established by the apartheid government in 1985 and is the single largest township in South Africa. It is located about 30 kilometres outside Cape Town. Our reason for going to Khayelitsha was because a children’s home there had contacted Michelle and wanted OTSK to discuss a partnership to help with their transitioning youth. The trip there was stunning, it was a beautiful sunny day and the whole ride is along the coast of False Bay, with the waves crashing and sand dunes everywhere. Once you hit Khayelitsha, the land is covered with shacks as far as the eye can see. There are asphalt roads in most public areas but once in the residential areas it goes to dirt roads and there are no street signs. The shacks are right on top of one another, there are lines for washing hanging everywhere. Small corner stores are bustling with business, lots of kids in the streets playing because they are still on holiday, women doing one another’s hair and men standing in groups talking and watching. There is a lot of trash everywhere in the streets but no one seems to notice or mind. Most of theshacks do not have doors, so you can see right into their homes. The shacks are small, very small.

Michelle is very excited to be here, when she first came to Cape Town she spent a lot of time in Khayelitsha, coaching soccer. She loves the feeling of community and togetherness that people have there. She spoke about the youth we work with – the mentees – really loving returning here for the weekend because they are surrounded by their community, their families and friends. We get many smiles, waves and some hellos. Since no streets are labeled we need some assistance finding where we are going.

We are going to visit a children’s home that gives shelter to between 140-160 children, aged newborn to 18. When we arrive we meet the staff and we are given a tour. First we go to see the smallest ones, toddlers and infants playing in the yard in the sun, outside with volunteers. Some are being rushed in and out for diaper changing, food eating or clothes changing. The majority of them are suffering from runny noses and are dressed in sweaters and long pants and are interacting with the other babies around them. We are told that most of these babies have HIV or have been affected by HIV. Some of them are dropped off at the home, some are found abandoned and some are taken from bad living conditions.

When we return to the office we talk about OTSK: what we do, our plans for this year and next and then we are told of the issues and concerns facing the youth in children’s homes in Khayelitsha. Some children live in institutions their whole lives. They have no family, they are not adopted, they are not sent to a foster home, they grow up here. When age 18 comes around they cannot legally stay.

As I am sitting in the office listening to Michelle speak to the director of the children’s home, my body is present but my mind is looking at a list of the 45 children’s home in the area. I read the list over and over again, thinking about how many children that represents and how they will fare out in the real world. A couple of times I think about the little toddlers playing in the sun and the teenagers in respite care and desperately hope that cycle of disease and death can stop soon. My eyes tear up a couple of time and I have to focus back in on the conversation so I don’t cry. Michelle tells the director she will have to look at OTSK’s numbers and let her know if we can invite them to join the programme next year. Michelle has to employ two full-time staff next year and that means bringing in a lot more funds before we can commit to adding too many more youth to the programme.

From the children’s home we drive to pick up a mentor and have a brief check in meeting. We pick him up from the side of the road and we go to Khayelitsha Mall in site B. The mall is a very new looking, open market with a very large open courtyard. Michelle and I are the only white people I see in the mall. This is a new experience for me – coming from a country where white people are the majority. Moms with kids, teenagers in groups, long lines at the bank, people in line to pay bills, the grocery store is crazy busy and lots of babies on mama’s backs. We sit and chat about his mentee and how things are going. He is extremely invested in the program and wants to have more contact with staff and his mentee. He is an amazing role model for his mentee; he is well connected in the community and has a great deal of patience with the youth.

After we do some other errands together we visit one of Michelle’s mentees. Michelle lights up at this visit, she is excited to hear how he is doing and what his plans are, now that he has moved back into the community after a number of years living in an institution. This young man has a baby girl who is immediately passed to Michelle while we all stand around and chat about family, friends and current going-ons. We hop back in the car, drop our mentor off and head back into Muizenberg. Once I see the ocean again, I look back and feel like I have just visited another country.

British film maker, Anna Telford, has made a short film for OTSK, which was kindly sponsored by The Delta Trust. The film was shot in February, just as our programme was launching, and we plan to follow it up with another film, so that we can show you how we are progressing with our new Transition to Independent Living (TIL) programme.

Research has shown that there are three types of care leavers, each with different levels of need. Masakane, who fits into the ‘highly resilient’ group, has given an interview.

Masakane is joining the board of trustees for our South African branch, which will be named Siyaphambili OTSK. The new name, which is Xhosa for ‘we are moving forward’, was chosen by Masakane.

Michelle Potter, Executive Director of Off The Street Kids, asked us to write a blog post about our experiences creating the website for OTSK.org.

Living in a culture of easy abundance, it is easy to take for granted convenience items, such as the alarm clock. It even seems odd to call an alarm clock a convenience item, given the abuse that many of us inflict upon our poor alarm clocks daily just for performing their given function.

But you may recall a story that Michelle posted this summer about a young man from the Mamelani workshop, who had left care at 18 and had recently started his first internship. When asked how things were going, he said that he had learned a lot and was very happy with the job, but he confessed that he had not been sleeping well. He had to wake up at 4:30 every morning to arrive at work on time, and because he had no alarm to set he was terrified of sleeping late and missing work. He would only allow himself to doze off before he’d awake with a start, and would end up spending most of the night watching the clock until it was time to get up.

Stories like this are humbling, because these young people are humble, and hardworking, and want nothing more than to be given the chance to find their place in the world. They are estranged from their families and communities, and without support many will end up back on the streets for lack of any other options.

We are excited by the role that this website will play in serving the young people as both a resource and an outlet for expression. The five boys currently participating in the pilot project already have shown great interest in the website and the possibilities it presents. We hope that this website and blog will be a collaborative effort. Just as they help to shape the pilot program, we hope that these boys help shape the goals and features of this website to best serve their needs and the needs of others like them who will face the same decisions and challenges when they turn 18.

For supporters, donors and potential donors all over the world, we encourage you to read this blog regularly and participate. Share your thoughts and ideas, post comments to the blog posts, join our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter. The website will highlight specific contributions you can make along the way to help the program grow and expand. The Donate page lists several ways you can help fund the organization right now to help launch the pilot program. You can be the extended support network that these young people lack and that most of us take for granted.

For the three of us, working on this website has been the most rewarding and humbling experience we have ever had. We are awed by the selflessness of these young people and their willingness to help younger children in the same circumstances. We feel blessed to be living in an age when the internet makes it so easy to reach people a half a world away; regardless of age, geographical distance, culture, and situation, we are all virtual neighbors. We hope, in some small way, to enrich the lives of these young people just as they have enriched ours.

Kelly Eagan, Alison Groves, and Sarah Peters

A number of the youth we work with are very keen to work with children, so we took them to a home comprising mainly of children under 10 years of age for a visit. The youth were keen to give their time to the younger children who do not get visitors and who were delighted to have older boys around.

At first everybody was a bit shy but before too long the younger children were entertaining us with their singing and dancing. For the duration of the visit each of the youth had at least one child on his knee, and in some cases, two.

I overheard one of the youth ask the small children what they wanted to be when they grow up and the reply was `a statue’.

The visit was a great success and the youth are going to return on a regular basis to visit the small children. Giving back is an important part of the process for the youth we work with, especially as they live in an institution where everything is done for them. Learning to give is essential during their preparation for making the transition to independent living.