11 February 2010
I have officially worked at the Cape Town Refugee Centre for a week now, so I suppose it is about time that I blog about my experience thus far.
For the Casual Reader: I am so content with my internship placement. In many ways, I can’t image a better synthesis to my Madison/overall education than what I do at the CTRC. When I graduate from MSU this May (hopefully!!!) my official degree will be “double majors in Comparative Cultures & Politics and French with specializations in African Studies and International Development.” My work literally allows me to dabble in each of these various areas. Refugees come to South Africa from various other cultural frames which guide the kinds of lives they desire to develop and lead here but also, as [often violently] displaced persons lead highly politicized lives. I work in French everyday, multiple times, engaging directly with refugee clients and acquiring a vocabulary of discipline-specific jargon. The African studies portion is quite obvious as I am IN Africa learning not only about South Africa but the various regions from which our refugee clients originate. The work itself is essentially development work; it is human development in the sense that we are attempting to develop/ameliorate the lives of individuals, but we focus strongly on basic problems of food security and habitation with additional programs relating to education, trauma therapy, and income-generating economics. The staff is incredibly welcoming, and I have already been entrusted with a great deal of legitimate work. I feel so blessed to have been given this opportunity, especially as the serendipitous outcome of a rather rocky internship search.
For the More Avid Reader: The commute to my internship is approx. 50-60 minutes door-to-door. That includes a 10-15 minute walk to the Cape Town central train station, a 35 minute train ride to a working-class southern suburb called Wynberg, and an additional 5 minute walk to my actual internship. The Cape Town Refugee Centre is located in a commercial complex called “The Wynberg Centre” adjacent to a post office, some small business ventures, and an escalator (roltrappe!) ride up from a small mall-type area. There is an enormous, informal outdoor marketplace spreading across the majority of the area. My first day impression was that, in contrast to my plush accommodations in the City Bowl (downtown Cape Town), this was a much more “authentic” Africa. Couldn’t help but smile as I was met with loads of fruit stands, hair-braiding salons, a mini-bus transit centre, street meat, commotion, energy, Afro-beats, working poverty, blatant loitering, hot-weather smoking, and general Blackness…By that I mean that Cape Town is a true representation of what South Africa likes to call itself: “The Rainbow Nation.” Blacks, Coloureds, Whites, Malays, Indians, Afrikaaners, foreigners, African immigrants, Middle Easterners. Yet, in the words of Kelly Moehlman when I told her I was going to South Africa @ThePeanutBarrel: “Cape Town is SO white!”
I understand what she means based on the City Bowl’s presence of Euro-cafés, cosmopolitan food, and general white privilege, but Wynberg is quite different. I hesitate to call it more ‘authentic’ because of the CCP baggage that comes along with that word, but let’s just say Wynberg is far more in tune to what I had imagined when wanting to come to the discursive conflation that we Westerners refer to as “Africa” (writ large). A bit dodgy, but not unsafe. To in turn complicate the idea of “authenticity,” the informal marketplace is BRIMMING with cheap American paraphernalia: High School Musical 3 backpacks that failed to sell back in the U.S. Various NBA-team jerseys from years back. T-shirts w/ corny slogans written across the front. Cheap watches. I immediately thought back to Professor Harrow’s class when we read a Nigerian novel and discussed the notion of ‘the bad copy.’ The image, representation of America and the Western entertainment industry, is everywhere. From my perspective it could easily be construed as a ‘bad copy’ of our everyday lives, the very items that failed to be bought in our culture and were turned over to anyone who would take them for cheap prices (NB: I need to research more on how this whole economic transition operates before so confidently asserting such things, but this is what I assume.) Yet, these items provide a livelihood for those that sell them. They take on meaning divorced from their 1st-level semiotic value (few are buying the backpacks as avid High School Musical 3 fans) and resurface as valuable commodities. Wynberg is by no means a township area, but it is definitely home to a lower-middle class sect of society with a vibrant outdoor market area. I’m digressing from my actually internship, so I’ll try to move on….
When I first arrived to the CTRC, I was surprised to find that I’ll be working with several other interns. I knew there was another intern there already (via my pre-departure twitter stalking) but I initially met an orientation with Christina (program director, CEO of the NGO if you will) and two other interns: Brett from UConn and Steph from some small school in PA. The intern-I-found-on-twitter’s name is Jenn and she is from the U of Oregon. Christina introduced the baseline structure of the Cape Town Refugee Centre so we could start to figure out where our background skills, education, and interest best make us fit into the organization. The CTRC is an NGO serving the greater Cape Town area’s refugees as an implementing partner of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). This means that we receive the bulk of our funding from the UNHCR and then allocate the funds according to specific budget lines and how we deem them best utilized. I’m sure I will write a lot more later analyzing the interrelationship between the UN, NGOs, and int’l political issues as I perceive them, but for now just think of the UNHCR as the int’l governing structure making decisions on refugee status / needs and my NGO, the CTRC, as the grassroots arm power enacting its policies. The South African government adds another variable to the equation in so far as it processes, grants, and “accommodates” both asylum seekers and bona fide refugees, but I’m still not totally clear on what its role entails, so I will add to that later as well.
The 3 main programs w/in the CTRC include: psychosocial services, education development, and an income-generating project. I have worked principally within the psychosocial service program thus far under a professionally trained social worker Afrikaaner woman named Annel. She is an incredibly kindly woman and has been a constant resource for my persistent questions, needed clarifications, and general obliviousness to certain organizational processes. The other main worker within this programme is Fwamba, who works with the bulks of incoming refugees to inform them what is / is not available for them through our NGO. The psychosocial services programme is a sort of umbrella project which seeks to assess the general lives, needs, and desires of our clients (The refugees are always referred to as clients…it is a very professional environment and relationship structure.) It is very social work heavy and involves the prescription of food vouchers, the artful construction of a file representing an overview of each client, and lots of referrals to other organizations / programs / businesses as deemed necessary. The main tool at our disposal is the interview. Clients arrive to the front waiting room, and then we call them back for interviews to determine what their most pressing needs are whilst attempting to screen out abusers of the social welfare system. In this sense, our office feels very doctor’s office-esque. They arrive, wait, and are called back for ‘treatment.’ From what I’ve observed, people wait for a long, long time, and no one seems to mind it. I think that is partly a symptom of the much more relaxed “Africa time,” partly something that refugees have by their very nature become accustomed to, and partly due to the overwhelming number of clients we must process in a relatively short amount of time.
The other two programmes are educational support and income-generating. I don’t know much about the educational support programme as of yet, but it is mainly designed to provide each and every refugee child available funding for schooling in South Africa. We strongly support universal education as a prerequisite for further aiding our clients and thus have significant funding available to help with registration and uniform costs. The income-generating programme is quite a bit more interesting. During our most recent fiscal review with the UNHCR, they decided to steeply increase the amount of monies we receive for the income-generating project and moderately decrease general monies available for more direct forms of aid. In the income-generating programme, refugees are encouraged to adapt the skills / experience they had working in their home countries and creatively modify them to economically integrate themselves into South African society. Funds go towards unavailable capital needed for small business ventures and basic skills training in available South African fields. The development scheme is quite similar to micro financing in that the businesses are not overly ambitious plans but small niches in the informal economy that are self-sustaining over time. Lots of craftiwork, lots of sales in the outdoor market areas, and some basic skills training. “Africa needs trade, not aid.” There is a noteworthy psychological aspect to this sort of development, too, as once individuals take some ownership and enterprise in their own lives, they gain a sense of both purpose and pride. I’d love to get more involved in this program within the upcoming weeks of work, for sure.
My French skills have been an ENORMOUS asset so far in my work. Our clients come mostly from the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Somalia; so clearly French has come in handy. (For those less well-versed in the global French community, the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, and Burundi are all significant French-speaking countries). Due to its sheer size and the perpetuation of its civil conflict, the DRC provides us with approx. 40-50% of total clients. Our senior social worker, Annel, grinned from ear to ear when we interns were all introducing ourselves and I explained that I had near-fluency abilities in French and a practical knowledge of Swahili. Granted she smiles like this often. Nonetheless, I have done some legitimate interpretation for her during her interviews and worked predominantly in French for some of my personally conducted interviews. Most clients have some English skills, but I would estimate that about 60% speak / understand French much better than they do English. I always start my interviews in English, because these people are in English-speaking South Africa and need to learn the language in order to adapt. However, as soon as there is sufficient difficulty in communication, I explain to them that I also speak French and offer them the possibility to carry on in that language instead. So far all of them have gladly accepted. Haha. The accent is a little different to understand but not as difficult as I had actually anticipated, and whenever I come across a discipline-specific or other vocabulary word that I do not know / have forgotten I merely use other words to explain the meaning, a feat that has proved very successful. In fact, interviews in English proceed much the same way. Often we must explain terms and ideas in multiple manners in order for the clients to understand what it is we are asking of them. My most rewarding experience was interpreting for a newly arrived Congolese family during their interview with Annel. Husband, 8+ month pregnant with twins wife, and two adorable little kids playing in the corner. This family understood virtually no English, and after Annel would ask/explain something, they would turn their heads to look at me with eyes of dire need. I felt at that moment like I was truly accomplishing something significant…my presence enabled this family a bit of comfort in a new environment and the capacity to explain their concerns to someone financially and professionally fit to help them.
I’ve used a bit of my Swahili, too, but many of the clients who speak Swahili are from East / Central Africa and also speak French. Thus, I have sometimes worked briefly in Swahili then transitioned into French. This week a new intern arrived who is studying in Cape Town but originally from Congo-Brazzaville so that gives me yet another chance to use my French skills in the workplace! None of the other interns have any significant linguistic background.
Last Friday, I made my first visit out into the townships. We don’t normally see clients on Fridays, but a single mother with 1 disabled son and 1 daughter showed up on our doorstep looking for urgent housing assistance. After working most the day on their case, Annel and I ended up personally driving the group to a shelter called “Bonne Espérance” in a township called Philippi. We took a few wrong turns on the way, so I really got to see the ‘other side’ of South Africa. The townships really are a different world than downtown Cape Town. So close geographically, yet I was firsthand witness to ambling goats blocking the streets, corrugated metal shacks jam-packed into a rural-urban ghetto, and the indescribable smell of extreme poverty. After seeing those sights, it seems difficult to consider taking South Africa off of a developing country list.
My most current work task involves the reassessment of certain grant recipients. We receive special donor-funded grants from the UNHCR for unaccompanied minors, children with disabilities, adults with disabilities, and elderly persons; but they must be reevaluated every 6 months in order to ensure that we are allocating our resources as effectively as possible. The current files haven’t been reassessed for 2 years due to more pressing needs, so that is my primary task for the next 1.5+ weeks. Unaccompanied minors are refugee children who, often because their biological parents are deceased, fall under the custody of other guardians. I have been digging through the CTRC’s file system the last few days to consolidate contact information, call the clients, set-up an appointment, interview them, and ultimately reassess whether or not they need this source of funding in their lives. A big task but also very rewarding.
I really do love my internship thus far. I feel as though I have studied issues like African politics, development, ‘African’ French, and int’l conflict for such a long time now, but in this job I can attach a human face. These are not Madison policy issues to debate with overzealous college students but cultures and politics that quite frankly govern the lives of visible, living, breathing human beings. On top of the issues, I am also getting a very strong feel for the operating procedures of an NGO as well as the possible conditions of their financing structures. I will definitely fill you all in more as I go on, but I also need to be careful not to compromise too much of our clients’ confidentiality.
Cheers!
