Trip to Khayelitsha: Who's Serving Who in the Townships

Khayelitsha means "New Home." It is a township that was created in the 1980s for blacks who were legally living in the Western Cape. During the apartheid era, the government was focused on creating separate neighborhoods for whites, coloreds and blacks. Khayelitsha was one of the neighborhoods that was created for blacks. Today, it is home to over 500,000 people. Here is a nice web-site about Khayelitsha: http://library.thinkquest.org/28028/home.html.

SHAWCO's Work in the Community
On Tuesday night I went out into the townships with members of the Board
of SHAWCO (Students Health and Welfare Centers Organziation), and two visiting faculty from Williams College. My colleague Janice is on the SHAWCO board, and I will be working with them during the year. So, this was my first chance to meet them, and see some of their work in the community.

SHAWCO is a student-run service organization at the University of Cape Town, that has been around since the 1940s, doing service work in the townships. They started as a bunch of medical students who saw there was no healthcare in the townships, and so that started to go out into the community and see patients, deliver food, provide blankets, etc. They have a great web-site with lots of great information about their work (http://www.shawco.org/). Every year, about 1200 students are involved in 14 SHAWCO projects, focusing now on two areas: HEALTH and EDUCATION. The med students run two nightly mobile clinics. Each night, around 10 med students supervised by a volunteer doctor see about 30-50 patients, who otherwise would have difficult access to medical care. We went with the team to Guguletu, and watched them set up their mobile clinic. When we got there, a dozen women with babies were already waiting for the team to come. There was a community outreach worker who had already gotten everyone lined-up and ready, and they were just waiting for the students to start work. It was incredible.

The other part of SHAWCO focuses on education. They have five different tutoring centers in the townships, where they work with kids from 3rd - 12th grade. This is a very popular program, and tons of students from UCT are involved. Also, this has become very popular as a study abroad service learning program, with lots of American and European students coming for extended visits. The SHAWCO Centers give the foreign service learning students great access to real life in the townships, and are doing meaningful work by providing tutoring support to the kids.

We visited a Center in Khayelitsha, one of the largest townships in the area. After driving for blocks and blocks through shack and shanties and cargo containers made into homes and stores, and strips of dirt serving as soccer fields, we arrived at the SHAWCO center. We met the site supervisor who is in charge of the center, and she gave us a tour of the facility: a gorgeous Bill Gates-sponsored computer lab with 32 computers all with wireless internet connection; a library with shelves of donated books and tables where the kids practice their reading; another separate study space; and a large covered reception hall which is where we parked our cars.

It was 5:00 pm when we got there, and the afterschool tutoring was over, so the place was empty. It was somewhat shocking to see this room full of gorgeous computers sitting empty and unused, in a place where there are so few resources, that EVERYTHING is being used for multiple purposes! We had a very interesting discussion about the role of SHAWCO and the SHAWCO centers, focusing on the question of whether the centers should be made available to other community organizations to use for meetings and other activities when they need them, or should they be reserved for the tutoring program. SHAWCO is struggling to define its role, and considering giving up the centers, and just providing services directly through the schools. That makes sense from a resource perspective, because it costs a lot of money to maintain these centers (staff, insurance, utilities, security, etc.), and for much of the week, the centers remain empty. Who is that serving? And yet, if they are turned over to the community, then the centers might not be available for the UCT and American students to come and do their service. And SHAWCO is very committed to the fact that these are student-driven programs.

So, Janice, the SHAWCO director Varkey, another board member who is a sociology prof named Johann, a UCT adminstrator named Sonwabu and I had a powerful conversation about: who is really serving whom? Is SHAWCO really serving the community, or is it serving the UCT and foreign students who come from worlds away (even if it is just across town) for a brief exposure to life in a township and a brief chance to help? This is an incredible resource, and yet, is it benefitting the community to the extent possible? The director has a budget to meet, and they are making money by hosting the American students. So in a way, running the service learning program for international students helps SHAWCO make ends meet. But is this a case of tail wagging dog? Are we accommodating the international students to the extent that we are not as in touch with the voices of the community? This will surely be an intersting theme to explore with the students and the SHAWCO board.

Blog ya later.

Seth./.