OVC Workshop

Why I am an African

Is it because of the colour of my skin?
Is it because of the language I speak?
Is it because of the way I speak?
No! I was born and rooted in Africa
I am an African queen
I am mother of all nations
I sing to izintaba zasemgungundbvu
I am a man with a womb
And black is my colour
South Africa my home
Africa my continent Ayanda, 13


My first three days of work at PSA was spent observing and assisting at a three-day workshop on leadership training for 20 teens aged 13 to 16. All participants were orphans and/or vulnerable children through the effects of HIV/AIDS, also known here in South Africa as OVCs. The kids seemed like any teenagers I would meet back home except that some were barefoot and wore hand-me-down clothes (one t-shirt advertised a 2001 festival in Ventura, CA). After introductions, my supervisor, Napoleon, introduced an exercise called “the road map.” I had participated in this exercise as a Peace Corps trainee. Everyone is given a flip chart size piece of paper and told to draw, illustrate, or create a road showing the highlights and important dates of one’s life. This is a helpful way to begin a discussion on identity, values and uniqueness of all participants. I was really unprepared for what happened next. After the kids were finished, they each brought their “map” in front of the room to share with the group who they were and what was important to each one. Most chose Zulu to share their maps, but one young, petite girl, Ayanda, shared hers in English. At first, I thought that the crosses with boxes I saw along her road map were churches. Then she proceeded to clearly and directly share her losses, her grief, her shame....her mother, an alcoholic recently diagnosed with AIDS, her grandmother and aunt who had died within the past 3 or 4 years, her witnessing of a stabbing between her uncle and father. Her tears began to fall but she was stoic in the face of describing her life. She left nothing out. Then one by one, the kids shared their stories, all with so much pain and so recent, that it was hard to imagine how they could be so resilient and forthright in the face of it. A few broke down completely. Many had grief that had not been shared fully,.perhaps because of moving around so often, adjusting to step-families, living with relatives that resented another mouth to feed or becoming head of a child-headed family. Their courage and strength is what impressed me the most.
South Africa, recently passed by India with the most HIV/AIDS victims in the world, is grappling with a brewing catastrophe. The implications of death and lingering illness of parents and breadwinners, resources being spread thinner in an impoverished population are creating a social disaster for many children. Some of the kids in the workshop did not have a permanent place to stay. Some came to the workshop hungry. The drop-in center created in the township that held the workshop was sponsored by PSA, the non-profit organization I work for, the community mothers and grandmothers and local churches and the government. They provide a nutritious lunch daily for the children and try their best, without adequate training, to assess and identify the needs of the children. What South Africans don’t know to date is the extent of the problem,
It was encouraging to me by the end of the workshop, in spite of the everyday trials they face, I did witness in some of the children hope, confidence and a belief that the future held something good for them Ayanda, for example, wrote the poem above and asked to share it with me before I left with my colleagues for home. After I read it, I promised her I would share her thoughts with my friends and family in America. She smiled.