Since returning from their travels, Simmons sophomore Renee Frojo and 14 other Simmons students are producing an anthology of their writing, titled "Women-to-Women: Young Americans in South Africa."
The book's royalties will be donated to two of the social service projects the students visited: a childcare center in Soweto, and the Treatment Action Campaign, an HIV/AIDS education and advocacy group. Africa World Press will publish the book in March 2006. Here's an excerpt from Renee's journal…
A Simmons student leads children in a game of "Simon Says" in a daycare center in the impoverished township of Soweto, South Africa
By Renee Frojo
(SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA)—Rubbing the sleep out of their half-opened eyes, the toddlers peeked their heads around the doorway before wandering barefoot onto the dirt floor outside. It was right after lunch time and some had just awakened from a midday nap. Wide smiles beamed from their dark round faces as they approached us.
After the first few came closer to get a better look, the rest grew more comfortable and followed suit, shrieking in excitement at our surprise visit. Attracted by the digital camera in my hand, one little boy hesitantly approached me.
As I looked down to take his picture, I could see my reflection in his deep brown eyes that were fixed on me like magnets. I followed him into the tiny schoolroom, where more than 50 more innocent eyes gazed up at us.
This was our second venture into Soweto, the oldest and largest "township" near Johannesburg, where blacks were forced to live during the era of racial separatism known as apartheid. I was traveling with a group of women students from Simmons College who were exploring women's roles in South Africa since the apartheid system was dismantled in the mid-1990s.
Through the tinted glass of our chartered tour bus, I gazed at miles of unpaved roads lined with small brick houses and unstable tin shacks. I had become familiar with the sight of so much poverty from a distance, but it was not until we stepped off the bus to visit the small crèche—a daycare center—in Soweto's Doornkop neighborhood that I got a close-up look.
On arrival, Gill Goodall, a retired teacher from a well-to-do white suburb who volunteers at the crèche, quickly briefed us on the history of the area and the establishment of the center.
According to Goodall, unemployment is still very high and the community of Doornkop remains in severe poverty. Left behind by a society in change, the fate of the community's children became the urgent concern of one of the township's most exceptional women, Nthabiseng Hlongwane.
After leading a movement to in the 1990s to establish Doornkop as an informal settlement, Hlongwane's focus was geared towards providing a shelter for the future generations of the community, said Goodall.
Children would wander the streets unattended and unfed. While their parents were at work or searching for jobs, there were no shelters to provide a temporary home or protection. Some of children had been either abandoned or their parents had died of AIDS.
"Nthabiseng was deeply concerned that no one was looking over the children, and something immediate had to be done," said Goodall.
Hlongwane was able to persuade the town council to grant her a piece of land to build a child-care center. Now known as the Limpho Hani Center, it caters to 50-60 preschool-aged children every day. From 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. the center is filled, seven days a week.
"I stay with them, look after them, and provide them with clothes," said Hlongwane, who cares for nine of the orphaned children in her own home.
Hlongwane said that when she founded the crèche it was a dump. She rounded up a group of young boys to help her clean up the area and easily bribed them into helping by rewarding them with food after a hard day's work.
"It took ages to clean, and we only received informal rights to the plot," said Goodall. "Right now they are still trying to get it formalized."
During my visit, the center appeared modestly bare. Only three buildings surrounded the dirt-floored quad, and only one zinc building served as the classroom. The other zinc building was the kitchen, in which volunteers helped prepare three meals a day for more than 50 children. It also served lunch to the hungry older siblings who passed by the crèche on their way home from school.
"I cook almost all the meals here," said Dismakatso Motau, a 3rd year politics student who volunteers at the crèche almost every afternoon. "It is a pleasure for me, especially when I can see how much they enjoy it."
Since the crèche is working on limited funding, the children were mainly fed soup from vegetables they gathered from a garden Hlongwane grew behind the school.
According to Goodall, the financial situation is dire. The center charges a fee of about $10 per month for any family who can afford it.
"It's still a huge work in progress," Goodall said. "Community involvement is crucial."
Some students helped out by making quilts and crocheting shoes for the children. There were also four teachers working, with no formal training, to teach English and help look after the children. The materials they use to teach with, such as paper and art supplies, were all from donations.
Inside the classroom, a few ragged posters painted with English words and pictures hung off the walls. On the floor lay a dirty and abandoned teddy bear with stuffing spilling out of its missing leg.
The school seems to be doing what it can with what it has. The children all appeared well groomed and well fed, but only a few could communicate with us in English.
"I wish to see these children at a better school and I want to see this place grow," Hlongwane said. "This is my dream, but it is just a dream."
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