Fits and Starts

The development of a grassroots organization is not a linear process. I am learning quite a lot about how a group of community stakeholders organize to address a need that affects everyone, in this case, needy children. Each community has its own unique set of problems with a unique method of addressing them. Most of the drop-in centres I surveyed at the beginning of my service featured a feeding program and possibly help with homework. There is no blueprint for a drop-in centre such as the one we want to provide, that is, a model to develop an identified group of children referred by the local primary schools in a holistic approach at a neighborhood facility. We hope to address the social, physical, educational and spiritual needs of 80 children. We opened our doors to provide services in the township in November, 2007. We felt that because of the crucial need to begin services for our needy children, we would develop the systems to operate the program afterwards. The doors were opened before we had put systems in place…...hmmm. From this vantage point now, it was probably the best decision to start when we did because our committee meetings could have continued to convene and discuss indefinitely without taking action. The important aspect in my opinion was that the committee had built a diversified team of community leaders who have a cohesive mission and vision of what they wanted to accomplish. Additionally, the process itself of trial and error helps to create a framework that is workable for our particular environment. That is where we are now.

The interest in supporting the drop-in centre is growing. Volunteers with special expertise such as educators are inquiring about how they can help. Church groups in town want us to make presentations to their meetings. The supermarket and local butcher are donating food for the weekly meals. And financial support looks promising……even a generous Christmas donation from family and friends in America.

My role in this initiative is to pull all these components together as a coordinator, mentor colleagues, develop the Youth Leaders program, perform the duties of Secretary to the Board and be consultant to the Board of Trustees along the way. It is a lot of responsibility at this point but gradually I am handing the baton to those in the community who will eventually take my place when I leave and return home in August. It is good work and I am proud to be a part of it.

Although it is more of an administrative function I serve in this project, I always get taken aback at how profoundly affected I can become by the pain endured by our children…..a week ago we clarified our policy that we would only accept children between the ages of 6 and 12 years of age at our Wednesday after-school program. It became apparent that there were three children that did not fit the criteria yet had been attending our Wednesday program for 6 weeks. Someone had to tell them the new policy and then ask them to go home….in the African culture I have witnessed, it is not proper to show your feelings of pain. I suspect that is because there is so much suffering in general that revealing the true nature of one’s pain just accentuates everyone else’s condition and makes it more difficult to deal with. Anyway, Delisile, the centre Coordinator, reluctantly went outside to tell the children. As I tried to dismiss my feelings of sadness by adhering to “policy,” I could see that the children were crying and Delisile was too. Then, all of the volunteers huddled together trying to figure out what to do. Luckily, the school principal happened by and helped us solve the dilemma allowing the three children to remain in the program. Later, I asked Delisile about her tears. She replied that the children had not cried because of a sense of entitlement or issue of fairness about being asked to leave, they had cried because there truly was no food and nothing to go home for.