South Africa: Day 6

My last day in South Africa gets a mixed review from me. I was signed up for a service trip that turned out to involve no service whatsoever. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about the state of education in South Africa and its applicability to the state of race relations in the country. To save time and prevent useless rambling, I'm going to simply copy-paste the essay response I submitted to my global studies class regarding the Amy Biehl "service" visit:

"On my last day in Cape Town, South Africa, I joined the Semester at Sea service visit to the Amy Biehl Foundation. We started the day in the middle of downtown Cape Town, where we entered the high rise that housed the official headquarters of the foundation. The manager of the foundation discussed the basis of the nonprofit, namely that during apartheid, so many South African children were robbed of their youth via the poverty of the township system that they turned to drugs, gangs, and violent crimes. Upon realizing this, the parents of Amy Biehl, an American girl killed in a township, sought to prevent more kids from going down that same road. The foundation does so via providing constructive afterschool programs in sports and the arts, peer education on HIV/AIDS, and academic support for children in local townships. Upon visiting a township school itself, I interacted with local children who were fascinated with my bald head and snazzy camera. A boy said what he wanted more than anything in the entire world wasn’t money or fame, but “chocolate”. As they played with my things, I glimpsed their nearly-empty libraries and under-equipped classrooms, which the twenty-six teachers used every day for over one thousand students. Despite the sorry state of the school, some upper-classmen performed music, dance, and theatre for us. They were amazingly talented at what they did, and most likely would never have had the opportunity to participate in the arts without the constant help of the Amy Biehl Foundation.

What I observed in my visit to the Amy Biehl Foundation and its partner schools was very applicable to what we have been learning regarding globalization and development, particularly regarding the importance of education. Without a proper education, it is incredibly difficult to succeed in the world no matter who or where you are. Unfortunately, residents of townships tend to drop out of high school in high proportions. They do so for various reasons, including overcrowded schools, the expenses of uniforms, pregnancies, and other factors. This makes the unemployment rate skyrocket, and leads to high levels of poverty in South Africa. So, while not going to school leads to poverty, already being in poverty tends to lead to dropping out. Clearly it is a vicious cycle. Globalization and development cannot happen unless the cycle is broken. Luckily, the Amy Biehl Foundation caters to development by keeping kids in school to help ensure future employment, providing them with extracurricular activities to strengthen their minds and leadership potential, and making sure that kids have all the relevant information they need about keeping healthy. Amy Biehl also uses the new global era to help support its cause. It brings in chorales from all over the world to perform for the students, and is in the process of engaging global support via posting a short documentary on the foundation on Youtube. Without the power of mobilization via globalization, this nonprofit would not be as strong as it is today. Without the nonprofit being so strong, children of townships could not develop as quickly as they are doing right now. Amy Biehl is doing its best to break the difficult, deadly cycle of poverty as it relates to under-education.

I feel that this service visit has expanded by understanding of what it means to be a global citizen in today’s world. The original founders of the foundation truly exemplified global citizenship through their powers of understanding and forgiveness. Amy Biehl was murdered by the very people she was trying to help. Many parents would have been so furious at their daughter’s murder that they would have demanded the killers be imprisoned for life. They would have written South Africa off as a terrible place to be full of evil people. However, the Biehls took the initiative to travel to South Africa to try to understand why those men did what they did to Amy. Upon realizing that it was the system, not the killers, that was dysfunctional, they not only vouched for the killers’ early release, but even worked with them to help develop the sports education section of the nonprofit. To be a global citizen means working towards the needs of all rather than the needs of one. The Biehls were exemplary people in that despite their grief, they did not seek revenge on the township members, but rather worked with them to help fight through the problems of youth in poverty. Forgiveness is a key quality in being a true global citizen."

So yeah. Good organization, good learning experience, dumbass service trip. Also, they're willing to let me intern with them. That'd be fun. :)

Also, that night I met Desmond Tutu (look him up, Daniel), shook his hand, and got a picture with him. So there's that.

OFF TO MAURITIUS!