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Feature: Lifting the Fog

ERICA DREIJER 

HOPE is buried below smoke and fog.  Dark narrow streets wind around stockpiled shacks.

For many living in Alexandra, one day spills into the next, with no light at the end of their existence.  Their neighbours are unemployment, hunger, personal suffering and crime.

Still, for others all hope is not lost in “the dark city”.  Some are trying to forge forward, despite their circumstances. 

Picture courtesy flickr

Often relief, in communities like Alex, does not come from large, elaborate initiatives and funding; but rather from small initiatives that uplift the lives of individuals. 

As William Easterly, a professor in economics at New York University and formerly a senior research economist at the World Bank noted in his book – The White Man’s Burden:  “Sixty years of countless reform schemes to aid agencies and dozens of different plans, and $2.3 trillion later, the aid industry is still failing to reach the beautiful goal [of making poverty history].  The evidence points to an unpopular conclusion:  Big Plans will always fail to reach the beautiful goal.”

Easterly believes solutions for issues like poverty can be found within “Searchers” – people who believe that only “insiders have enough knowledge to find solutions, and that most solutions must be homegrown.” 

Home grown local solutions include initiatives like the Ballet Theatre Afrikan (BTA) Company and imaginationlab.  These give hope and change the course of lives.  Young hopefuls joining these programmes are taught skills that will allow them to become self-sustaining and provide a better life for their offspring.

“I have so many kids coming out of Alex.  I have changed their lives.  I have changed their family.  By becoming involved in ballet, you have changed an entire family through one child.  You are changing the whole fabric of that society.  Change comes about by changing one person’s life, not the masses,” explained Martin Schönberg, retired ballet dancer and artistic director of BTA.

In 2000 at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the world’s leaders set out to improve living conditions of those living on the continent by 2015.   They identified eight key areas – called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – with the common goal of creating human dignity and a world free of poverty and injustice.

Post 1994, South Africa has been marked by large economic growth.  And many initiatives have contributed to improving the livelihood of those that had little access to basic necessities in the apartheid years. 

But life in Alexandra has remained more or less unchanged. 

Picture courtesy flickr

Dogged by crime, violence, overcrowding, lack of infrastructure and high unemployment from the 1930s, Alex today still struggles with the same issues.

Gauteng’s oldest township, continues to be one of the poorest in the region, even though it is only 3kms away from Sandton, one of Africa’s wealthiest suburbs.

An influx of youth, in search of employment in Johannesburg, contributes to exacerbate living condition for those living here.

Unofficial estimates figures report unemployment to be in the region of 60%, more widespread among women (40%) than men (19%) and the average household income is about R1 029 per month.

Old Alex is mainly characterised by informal dwellings, shacks and hostels and the 7.6 square kilometres over which Alex stretches houses 350 000 people or 45 000 per square kilometre, against the urban norm of 2 500 per square kilometre.

As most shacks are not connected to the electricity grid, inhabitants resort to illegally tapping the main power lines.  Only about 65% of households have access to piped water.  And less than 20% of households have access to private toilet facilities. 

It is against this backdrop, that the value of the work that the BTA and imaginationlab do injects some hope.

Art and culture play an important role in creating sustainable human development.  And with the South African Department of Education including it into the school curriculum its importance for developing a nation becomes evident.

Schönberg started BTA in Alexandra 17 years ago, after a dinner guest said “it’s a pity about the blacks, they got wonderful rhythm, but unfortunately they really can’t do classical ballet.”

The company has received praise both locally and internationally for producing black dancers of world class standard and continues to look for talent from previously disadvantaged sectors of society.

“It was something I needed to do, and it was something that the children yearned for. They loved it,” Schönberg realised after starting BTA in Alex.

Schönberg believes that those children training under his guidance are not just getting another “art class”, but a whole new way of life.  “Understanding the whole package of what makes a ballet dancer,” is important, he explained.  Aspects taught include music, history and even the anatomy of what makes each dancer unique.

Dancers receive classical training as well as training in contemporary dance, jazz, Spanish and Afrofusion, which consists of a mix of traditional African dance and other styles.

Picture courtesy www.joburg.org.za

Thirty children are selected to train with BTA in Alex each year.  Classes are free and leotards and shoes are donated by the school.   Children are also given a meal before each class to improve their concentration.

It is hard work that will one day pay off as “many have gone on to dance internationally,” he said.  Classes take place, four afternoons a week.  Each is two hours long. 
The objective is to develop professional dancers, choreographers and dance teachers from within under-resourced communities in South Africa that will be able to be employed locally or internationally.

“The need for this academy, resulting in the production of dancers of an international standard that can go out into the marketplace and earn their living from dance, has been identified by the community and a solution has been requested repeatedly over many years,” said Paula Kelly, the previous administrative director of BTA.

“The academy will, in addition, produce a number of qualified teachers of dance from the community,” she said.

Another initiative operating out of Alex is the imaginationlab, a facility that gives school leavers the opportunity to discover their creative strengths and passion when considering careers in creative fields like design, fashion, copy writing and photography.

The imaginationlab was borne from a dream that Gordon Cook and Andy Snyman had to help youth discover themselves through their creativity and to impart valuable life skills.

McDonald Musimuko, a student at the lab in Alex, said:  “For those who finish school and are brain stuck, that do not know what to do, it [the imaginationlab] gives you a good idea of what you want to do.”

As part of his dream, Cook wanted to put these young adults “into a sandpit and give them lots of toys to play with to stimulate their creativity” by exposing them to different creative stimuli that would help them find a niche through which they would be able express themselves creatively to sustain a living.

Cook said:  “From a macro perspective, the purpose of the lab is to bring previously disadvantaged talent into the [advertising, creative and brand building] industry by creating a ladder for them to climb that gives people the opportunity to climb into a field where they naturally belong.”

Previously, “talent was literally just sitting on the street, falling through the cracks,” but the labs have helped to create awareness that there are actually many opportunities for creative children in underprivileged societies, Cook explained.

Each class consists of around 25 – 30 students and around 100 hopefuls apply to each of the five centre’s each year.  Selection is based on demonstrating individual creativity by answering a brief. 

“The lab and Vega [who administer the lab] are not based on forcing an outcome on students but rather allows them to engage with creativity as a process,” Cook explained.

“They put your head into everything, branding, copy writing, design.  You also find out about yourself, and learn about who you are and what you like, you learn about yourself,” said Musimuko.

“I am having a lot of fun.  After finishing matric I was caught up with other things, and I didn’t know what to do with my life.  It made me realise that there’s more to life than to sit around and wait, thinking that things will come to me.  It made me realise this is who I am and this is what I want to do,” he said.

Students attend the lab for free and those that have to travel are provided with a monthly allowance that will help them to cover their travelling costs.

The labs are financed through collections made from the Media Advertising Publishing Printing Packaging (MAPPP) SETA and from agencies and corporates that provide Vega with funding, internship programmes and send employees to teach at the labs. 

Corporates have used their involvement in the labs to create mentorship programmes within their organisations – that helps to sustain accountability from individuals that teach at the labs – and helps with their corporate social investment (CSI) in underprivileged communities.

The first lab was run from Vega in Benmore, after which Cook started rolling out the labs to other areas including Alex.  Today there are five, with plans to open many more across all areas in South Africa.  For Cook, it is important the labs partner with local communities to help to uplift them. 

Slowly the fog starts to lift over communities like Alex.

Picture courtesy www.joburg.org.za

Flying by the seat of your pants

TAKE the Amazing Race, add the car chase from Bullitt and an equal measure of an Indiana Jones adventure and you have an airport drop off with my boyfriend, James (better known as the “most disorganised person in the world”).

James had to fly out from South Africa the morning before he would be hosting a workshop in Mumbai.  Since he travels business class, we only arrived at the airport 45 minutes prior to his departure – with plenty time to spare!

As I off-loaded James at the drop off zone, I was immediately hauled back. 

Drama! 

He had left his passport at his parents’ home in Germiston.  Their house keys were safely tucked away in his car – 30 minutes in the opposite direction, in Rivonia.  And to top it, his parents were on away on holiday so there was no one to let us in.  Business as usual!

We’re in luck, the following flight out to India would be leaving at 2pm and will allow him to arrive just in time for his 9am meeting.

We screeched into their housing estate and broke into the house using a garden gnome – conveniently placed in the garden for occasions like this!  At the sound of glass shattering neighbours pile out of their homes to see what the racket is all about.

James pays a neighbour off to take care of the broken window.  Passport in hand we headed back to the airport.  As we pulled into Johannesburg International we are informed by the travel agent that British citizens living outside the country now require a visa for India.

Off to the Indian Embassy in Parktown we go!

Over the phone we are informed that the embassy will be closing in 15 minutes and that James requires passport photos for a visa.  Though they are kind enough to agree to wait for us!  First stop, Rosebank Mall to get photos and finally we reach the embassy!

A visa is issued within 10 minutes – now the embassy’s official record.

With 5 minutes to spare, James checks in.  Erica checks out.

P.S. For some R&R, check out the famous Bullit car chase on YouTuBe

PRESENTING Bullit: 

Feature: Alice Brown

A real life “she-ro”

ERICA DREIJER 

LOOKING at Angela Davis next to an African American attorney on the front page of The New York Times conjured up a dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer for 14 year old Alice Brown.

“Here was my ‘she-ro’ in handcuffs, going to court – and next to her was this African American man and he was her attorney.  That was the first time in my life I realised that there were African American attorneys,” recalled Brown.

Davis, a racial activist, came under the spotlight in August 1970 when the FBI listed her as one of the ten most wanted criminals in the United States.  She was implicated in a failed attempt to free prisoners from Soledad Prison in which four people were killed when the gun used in the incident was traced back to her.  Davis went on the run and was arrested only two months later.

At that point in Browns life, she had only come into contact with a handful of African Americans teachers and knew that there were African American women practicing as nurses.

“And I knew of African American preachers, because Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in all of America.  But male or female I had not seen or heard of an African American attorney before.

“And I said, damn, this is what you can do!  This is what you can be!  The kind of person that defends Angela Davis!  That is what I want to do.”

But she would only litigate and practice law 20 years later in 1990.

Brown is the Southern African representative for the Ford Foundation, which means “I run the office for the region and I am also the grant maker for philanthropy and arts and crafts.”

She got “stuck” in South Africa, when while “on sabbatical for a year” as a human rights fellow at Harvard “with six months worth of money”, the Ford Foundation asked her to consult for them for six months.

“So I’m bouncing back between South African and Cambridge [Massachusetts] and it must have been month number five, when the then representative of this office, John Gerhard, came to me and said to me:  Alice, I’m about to lose a staff member and I need some help.”

“And I said to him, you know John I am on sabbatical and I am probably going to just go back to the states eventually.  But okay, since I am running out of money and I could use it I could do this for four or five months and then I’ll finish off my sabbatical and then I’ll go back to the US.” 

Brown fiddles with the coasters on the table.  Organising and re-organising them into patterns. 

But during her fourth month here she had an epiphany.

“I said to myself, what are you going to do?  You are going back to where to do what?”

Brown – a trained civil rights lawyer with a particular interest in South Africa – decided that being in South Africa during its transformation was an opportunity which doesn’t present itself often.  And she decided to stay on.

“I was just saying:  man, there is all this stuff going on why the hell would you want to go back to the US to beat your head against that wall?”

At the time the Constitutional Court was being established and the Constitution was being drafted.

“And you have social and economic rights that are being written into the Constitution, very explicitly in a way they don’t exist in the US,” recalled Brown. 

“You can be in a place where you’re starting from scratch, starting with a clean slate. 

“In an atmosphere where you would be helpful; helping to facilitate the development of the human rights arena and the development of a progressive human rights culture that cannot happen in the US right now.

“What is it?  ‘South Africa alive with possibility.’  I heard the ad and I bought into it.”

So the “light bulb went off” and Brown stayed on in South Africa at the Ford Foundation, even though it meant that she wouldn’t be able to practice law or litigate.

Brown had previously worked at the Foundation in New York – from 1986 to 1990 – and was responsible for grants to black South Africans during the apartheids years.

And at the time, she believed it was destiny. 

She had decided that after completing her degree, she would first complete a Masters degree in African history at Northwestern University before returning to New York University to complete her law degree.

“It was a great disappointment to my father who didn’t understand it at all,” recalled Brown.  “As since I was 14 I had declared that I was going to be a lawyer.  So what the hell did grad school and history have to do with being a lawyer?  Why didn’t I just stay on track?”

Brown however believes that “I was ahead of my time”, since for her, to be a good civil rights lawyer it was necessary to have a good understanding of African-Americans history first.

“This was 1978, ’79, ’80 and people were looking at me in grad schools and law school like I was crazy,” recounted Brown. 

“They would say to me:  in terms of the law and those issues, you would need to look at international law.  And as a young professional you don’t get to work in the United Nations (UN), you need to be seasoned and older and there really is no way to marry these two.”

But she stood her ground. 

“So I stayed a year [at grad school] and then went to law school as I said that I was going to do” and specialised in public interest law.

In the eighteenth month of her clerkship she heard about the position at the Ford Foundation. 

The job spec required someone with a social science background in African history or African development and a law degree.

“So I said that’s my job.  That’s written for me.  And I’ve never felt that way before in my life, and I said somebody wrote that job for me.  And I applied and amazingly I got the job.”

Founded in 1936 by Edsel and Henry Ford, the Foundation operates as an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation with 12 offices in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Russia.

During the apartheid years, the Foundation was particularly involved with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at Wits, the Black Lawyers Association, Black Sash and a number of higher education programmes. 

“At that point we were particularly trying to help increase the numbers and expand the educational credentials of black South Africans.”

This included sponsoring scholarship programmes that were taking black students to the States to complete Masters and PhD degrees and local internship and fellowship programmes that allowed black students to complete degrees.

Today, the foundation is still active in higher education, but initiatives also include philanthropy, human rights issues, governance, economic and environmental development, arts and culture and sexual health on which it spends about $16 million each year across South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

After 5 years as a grant maker, she decided that it was time to pursue her dream as a civil rights lawyer. 

“In about 1989, I started to feel itchy, like okay, this is a great job and I’m doing great things, but I’m a grant maker.  I’m funding public interest law centers, I’m funding human law attorneys to do things … you – as a donor – are not the doer, you are funding, helping those who do.”

Having completed her law degree, passing her bar exam and finishing her clerkship with the federal law of appeal, she was a qualified as lawyer but had never practiced law. 

“And I need to do it sooner rather than later,” she decided.  “Because the longer I take to go back to it the less credibility I will have to get back into the field.”

So began Brown’s five years as a litigator at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Education Fund.  She was responsible for the legal aspects of housing conditions, environmental justice and poverty issues for African-American communities.

“It was something I was very passionate about and nearly everybody I worked with in that agency was as passionate about.  You could literally just work 24 hours a day, seven days a week and still not do enough or not give enough.”

But after five years, she decided that she needed some time out.

“It was very, very demanding and exhausting and all consuming.  I decided to take a break.  So I took a year’s sabbatical, with six months worth of money.”

And that is how she ended back at the Ford Foundation.

Brown, a single mother, has an eight year old son, Ayanda, and even though she is a dedicated professional, “my responsibility is him”. 

“His dad is around and sees him every other weekend – ‘Disney Dad’.

“You do the discipline, you do the hard work and they come in and ‘here’s tickets to World Cup Soccer’, or ‘here’s that PlayStation that you wanted’.  And you’re ‘but he doesn’t need it’.  And he’s like, ‘he wanted it’.”

“I like parenting for the most part.  I say to my kid, I think I’ll keep you, I think the warrantee has run out.  Although, every once in a while I threaten to take him back and get my money back and he says you know it’s against the law.”

Brown tries to spend as much time with Ayanda as possible.

Generally she gets up early after having woken up two or three time during night to “send out notes on my crackburry” or make notes on her laptop. 

And every morning she cooks them oatmeal and fruit for breakfast.  After walking him to school, she gets ready to go to the office “to be faced with 15 000 things”.

“I come in with my list of things I want to do, that I want to accomplish, and then life is what kicks in when you are sitting around planning other things,” she said.

“I get phone calls and I get staff members, and I get e-mails from New York saying we need x yesterday, and can you meet with so and so who’s at the front door who hasn’t got a meeting.  So, I come in and have a crazy day.”

She generally tries to be home around 5.30pm to spend some time with her Ayanda – to share dinner and play a couple of games – before putting him to bed after which she tends to either continue working or “crashes”.

Brown describes her life growing up as very different from her sons.  She grew up in a town with in New Jersey, 20 minutes from Manhattan, called Hackensack with her four sisters and surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles. 

“We were always running from one auntie’s house to one uncle’s house to the park with my cousins.”

According to Brown, today, everything is organised.  Nothing is as spontaneous.  And as children, they had a chance “to use your ingenuity in a way that’s different” from today.

Today, “you have to arrange a play date.  You have to arrange to go to the movies or the mall.

“We would literally just go the park and strike up a game, like something like Double Dutch, hide and seek, what have you.”

Or they would collect and return soda bottles to the store so that they had money to go to see a movie.

For Brown this is an unfortunate part of the reality with which children today have to deal with.

“Times have changed.”

Picking wedding music no song and dance

  

ERICA DREIJER

MUSIC sparks all kinds of emotions in people… it makes us happy, sad and can even be traced back to the root of a fight or two.

So on the day that I was swapping my identity as a single woman to become Mrs Hier (pronounced hire… or is that higher?) it was fitting for music to form a crucial part of the material that our dreams would be made of.

The first step in laying the foundation was to ensure that we selected music that personified two individuals and a merger for our new life together as Mrs and Mr Hier.

We piled hours into this occasion… trying to find a balance between what we love, what people can stomach and what makes for a memorable party.  It’s not every day you get married! And we were going to make sure that we were going to enjoy every moment.

We ended up with a list that we were told “is good stuff to play after 10pm, once the older and more respectable crew have settled down for the evening”.

Enough said.

Finally the big day arrived.

After keeping my now nervous groom waiting for 20 minutes, I strode down the aisle to the Wedding March. Although it is traditional, it provided familiarity in a moment of uncertainty as I crossed over from singledom into married life.

It also reminded me that this attractive man would be my husband within the hour.

Afterwards, lively piano mingled with the sound of chatter on the patio of the Laborie estate in the Cape winelands as we shared a drink with our guests and watched the sun go down on the beautiful Paarl Valley.

We entered the dining hall on U2’s It’s a beautiful day.

Our first dance was to the tune of Chasing Cars though we kept on thinking that we should have rather chosen I Want to Grow Old with You by Adam Sandler from the movie The Wedding Singer.

We partied to songs like Bitter Sweet Symphony, Blister in the Sun, Scar Tissue and Rock me Amadeus.

As everyone danced to the last song for the evening; Wonder Wall by Oasis, they were all in high spirits. 

But I convinced James (that’s Mr Hier) to allow one of our guests, who had come a long way, to play his choice as the last song, as a favour. So the Blue Bull song by Steve Hofmeyr filled the room and all dancing came to an abrupt halt.  It was the wrong song with which to end the night on a high note.

An inebriated guest stepped in and tried to save the day by fast-forwarding through the play list in search of a more inspirational last song.

Our unhappy Blue Bulls supporter (who was not even dancing to his own song) moved in with his fists and started throwing insults about.  The evening nearly ended on a low note… But once again, music came to the rescue as we were allowed to select another “new” last song.

U2 we salute you!  Emotions were soothed as Pride (In the name of Love) played out.

Movie Review: The Lives of Others

Living with others

ERICA DREIJER

A DAVID and Goliath tale that shows the profound impact an individual can have on the lives of others within the repressive society that existed in communist East Germany.

We realise how through osmosis, what we live in proximity with, can influence us, and change us forever. 

Set in East Berlin in 1984, five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, we get a sense of life in a communist regime.  It was a time when the Stasi – the secret police – made it their business to know every aspect of some of their citizen’s lives through an extensive network of spies and surveillance.

Vuvuzela

FOR the past year, as part of the post grad course in journalism that I studied at Wits, our class had to produce a weekly newspaper – Vuvuzela – which was distributed free of charge to the Wits community. 

At the beginning of the year Vuvuzela was produced by 18 students with the help of interns from previous years but by the second semester only 10 of us were left to produce each week’s edition. 

Every week we needed to generate story ideas – that would be relevant and interesting to the Wits community – and present it at news conference on Monday mornings before class.  News editors rotated weekly and besides completing our stories by Wednesday afternoons, we were also given additional tasks that would give us practical experience of the work involved in “putting a newspaper to bed”. 

Thursdays were set aside for production – also done by us – and uploading the newspaper onto the website:  www.vuvuzelaonline.com.  While distribution of the 10 000 copies took place on Fridays. 

Here are some examples…

OCTOBER.PDF

SEPTEMBER.PDF

AUGUST.PDF

JULY.PDF

MAY.PDF

APRIL.PDF

MARCH.PDF

FEBRUARY.PDF

Feature: New York City

EXPERIENCE NEW YORK:

TRAVEL FEATURE:

Your second home

EVER notice how President George Bush starts talking slower just as he’s about to make an important point? 

“I used to think it was something he did for emphasis or to simplify a complex concept.  But I now realise that he’s merely mimicking the way it was explained to him!” said Al Ducharme.

 

Photo courtesy www.flickr/photos/iceman75

We were watching stand-up comedy at the Gotham Comedy Club as New York continued to work her charm on us.  Slowly opening her bag of tricks – she drew us in under her spell – turning us into life-long fans, along with the 40 million others that visit her shores annually.

Merely calling New York a city with many attractions would not serve her well.  This is an experience that is bound to stay with you forever.  One you’ll look back on with a sense of dreamlike awe… wondering if it was real.

For the traditionalist, experiences range from standard attractions found in most guidebooks like cultural, dining, shopping, art or history.  Or, for those adventurous enough to be led by a higher force, there’s a blank section under “expect the unexpected”.

Driving me up the wall

MY husband and I belong to a generation that is not scared to use our mental powers, but shirk at the implications of having to use our hands.

Do-It-Yourself is something you watch other people do or, as is the case in James’ family, attempted with a butter knife, cello tape and a piece of string.

World Cup Rugby 2007

Photo courtesy flickr

Bok sports

ERICA DREIJER

The time had come – by tonight South Africans were posed to either be triumphant in victory, or steeped into some lowly form of “dronk-verdriet” (drunken-sadness).

For weeks, we had watched the Boks trash one team after the next. Not always enthralled with their play, but nevertheless impressed that finally that the post-1995 slump was lifting and that the Springboks were becoming a force to be reckoned with once again.

In the week leading up to the final, Bok patriotism had reached a new high, and over night, “green and gold” had become the latest fashion accessory.

Rugby supporters wore their jerseys with pride. Street vendors finally had wares that were being sold out at traffic intersections. South Africans had adopted a green and gold national flag adorned with a springbok and it seemed as if the town was buzzing with officials as everywhere green and gold flags were flapping from car windows.

Even foodies were taken up in the moment. One of the local fast food outlets started producing green hamburger buns and supermarkets were selling green and gold bread on “the big day”.

The media went crazy in anticipation, educating the public on the rules, capturing national pride by replaying the winning moment of the 1995 World Cup and a local musician produced a special World Cup album. Everyone went gaga as they were swept up in World Cup fever.

On Saturday afternoon, in true South African fashion, the great trek to friends’ houses started. Social laagers were formed around braais (BBQ’s), booze and TV screens.

And all across town, the unofficial Springbok anthem: “Impi! Wo ‘nans’ impi iyeza, Obani bengathinta amabhubesi?” could be heard.

It’s a song that tells of the Zulu regiments’ victory over the British troops led by Chelmsford and the chorus is a challenge to those whom they are to fight against. Now, centuries later – these two parties would meet again to “fight “for victory.

Entering into a smoky bunker we take position behind an alcoholic beverage, armed with the knowledge that the Boks are the favourites to win… But our hearts are heavy. What if… there’s that niggling uncertainty of “what if…?” Wishing we had the powers to see into the future… to fast-track the next couple of hours that lay heavy upon us…

This has been a World Cup of upsets after all… so, what if?

Emotions reign high as we sing our national anthem. We unclench our jaws at a six point half time lead. Hold our breaths as we watch the England “try” replay. Jig with happiness when the referee denounces it. And get fabulously high on becoming the world champions once again.

An indescribable relief allows us to breathe freely again… and sleeping is what you do, when you’re dead, on an occasion like this.