“Development” can mean any number of things. Recalling back to my “MC 320: Politics, Society, and Economics of the 3rd World” course, the quandary of defining development successfully is in itself a significant obstacle towards meeting its ends. There is strictly economic development, or the idea of capital accumulation that is preferably also self-reinforcing and multiplicative. There is political development, often loosely paired with the idea of democratization and increased power shares for the individual in society. There is cultural development, or the so-called expansion of a multi-level semiotic web in span and influence (borrowing from the Geertzian model of culture). More closely related to the work of the CTRC, yet heavily intertwined with the other modes, is the notion of human development. This means individual empowerment within its social frame, whether that be couched in terms of gender, psychology, language formation, education, skills training, or sustenance. If one further deconstructs the very notion of “development,” he/she might ask something along the lines of: “Development to what? Development from what?” Does the concept of development as it exists today not presuppose an inherently enlightenment, dare-I-say capitalist ideology of increase, expansion, and acquisition? What is the ultimate goal of development, and who gets to decide what the benchmark for this goal ought to look like? Perhaps more bluntly, to what extent is “development” metonymous / synonymous / or even reflective of Westernization?
These very theoretical questions I have struggled with during some of my Madison / Int’l Development courses have taken on an all new light now that I am working out in the field at a grassroots level. Refugees have very diverse needs related to the above-mentioned questions, but Level 1 is always sustenance. As I mentioned in the previous entry, one cannot consider more advanced forms of development needs when there is no food in the stomach. One Congolese woman literally spelled out to me: “Le ventre qui a faim n’a pas d’oreilles” (The hungry stomach has no ears.) In conjunction with this statement might be something like: “Sans abri, accablant de pluie.” (Without shelter, rain is overwhelming).
The Achilles heel of these development priorities is their fleeting usability. Time and time again I have found myself having to tell clients: “I’m sorry, but we can’t help you with your rent payment. We just don’t have resources for that.” That idea, as articulated to me by supervisors, is that rent money disappears. If we pay rent one month, the refugee client will profit from shelter for that month, but what will happen during the next month when they need rent monies yet again? Immediately, there arises a system of both dependence and fund evaporation. Food falls into a similar category, but denying a starving person the very food they need to continue breathing is entirely more problematic. We simply can’t do that either.
Level 1 Development Aid, as I’ve decided to term it, hence seems both the necessary goal and the “anti-focus” of our work. People need this sort of aid to continue their own survival, yet we work at all costs to avoid the recapitulation of said aid dependency. Like the Mama bird that throws her baby off a cliff to teach it to fly only to bandage and nurse it back to health when it fails miserably; we push refugees to utilize the informal networking system surrounding them only to aid them with “Level 1 Development” if they crawl vulnerably back into our office. The looks of desperation, annoyance, or disappointment that I see on a daily basis when I state, “I’m sorry, but we can’t pay rent” can only be coupled with a reassuring smile followed by a, “How do you feel about starting up a small business venture?” or perhaps even more accurately: << Ça vous intéresse, commencer une petite entreprise? >>
Showing posts with label NGOs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NGOs. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Critical Needs Intervention
Cape Town Refugee Centre seeks to aid the most vulnerable refugees before any others. This is determined by a thorough interview for each and every client, both our main administrative task and principal tool for successfully meeting the needs of individual cases. There thus exists a rough frame through which the CTRC conducts assessments and distributes aid: Families are treated as single case units (apparently this is one of the foundational principles found in social work). Single women are viewed as more vulnerable than single men due to men’s de facto capacity to go out into the world by themselves and network with far less risk than their female counterparts. Whenever children are involved in a case, the entire family unit is automatically considered more at risk than they would be otherwise. Physically and psychologically disadvantaged individuals are often more unable to work than others, so they are considered an at-risk group. Finally, new arrivals (those whom have arrived in South Africa within the past 6 months) are considered to be more vulnerable than those refugees who have already spent a minimum of 6 months in the country and theoretically had enough time to re-establish themselves.
Given this rubric, certain cases raise immediate red flags for needed social assistance. One of these such cases involved a single woman with two children needing immediate assistance with housing. To make matters worse, the woman spoke virtually no English [and broken French!]. Her son had an acute knee problem that recently required an operation, rendering him unable to walk and placing him out of school for the time being. Although CTRC does not normally aid clients in finding living arrangements, this particular case warranted immediate efforts. As senior social worker Annel explained to me: “How can a person think about work when he/she does not even have a roof over his/her head?” Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs must come into play for this type of grassroots human development work. Food and water form the primary building block for human survival. Shelter from the elements and personal security follow closely behind. Only once these needs are met can an individual begin to worry about additional ventures: education and work, emotional contentedness, and ultimately self-fulfillment / helping others. Encouraging this family to put their son back into school would not mean much at the time if they were still unable to place a roof over their heads.
From this critical incident arose the essential inevitability of NGO networking. The CTRC does not have sufficient resources to provide for all the diverse needs faced by the South African refugee community. When we encounter a case such as the above-mentioned one, then, we need to call upon the resources available via surrounding civil society organizations, government structures, and other institutions in order to help meet our clients’ urgent needs. For the case at hand, we telephoned a nearby shelter called Bonne Espérance to see if they had sufficient room to house this woman and her two children. Bonne Espérance only houses vulnerable women and their small children, but it offers them education during their up-to-6-month stay, crèche (daycare) for the little children, and support for post-residency societal reintegration.
Luckily, Bonne Espérance responded in the affirmative. Since I played a significant role in this family’s case, Annel let me accompany her when she drove the family in her personal vehicle to their new temporary home. Bonne Espérance is located in Philippi, one of the South African townships. It blew my mind to see how different this community looked from its nearby neighbors: colourful shacks piled one atop another; roosters, cows, and goats ambling freely across the busy intersections; pervasive dirt; giddy school children in their uniform-best next to disheveled one-toothed vendors; piles of fresh fruit falling victim to mass swarms of flies and insects; chickens waiting on death-row to be consumed at a township braai; and oddly enough the cheerful façade of Bonne Espérance cloaked in protective barbed wire. The organisation’s courtyard and facilities evoked similarly unanticipated reactions of pleasant surprise. I watched “half-spectator / half-participant” as the family exited the vehicle into their new surroundings and wished “good hope” to my first case of critical life intervention development.
Given this rubric, certain cases raise immediate red flags for needed social assistance. One of these such cases involved a single woman with two children needing immediate assistance with housing. To make matters worse, the woman spoke virtually no English [and broken French!]. Her son had an acute knee problem that recently required an operation, rendering him unable to walk and placing him out of school for the time being. Although CTRC does not normally aid clients in finding living arrangements, this particular case warranted immediate efforts. As senior social worker Annel explained to me: “How can a person think about work when he/she does not even have a roof over his/her head?” Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs must come into play for this type of grassroots human development work. Food and water form the primary building block for human survival. Shelter from the elements and personal security follow closely behind. Only once these needs are met can an individual begin to worry about additional ventures: education and work, emotional contentedness, and ultimately self-fulfillment / helping others. Encouraging this family to put their son back into school would not mean much at the time if they were still unable to place a roof over their heads.
From this critical incident arose the essential inevitability of NGO networking. The CTRC does not have sufficient resources to provide for all the diverse needs faced by the South African refugee community. When we encounter a case such as the above-mentioned one, then, we need to call upon the resources available via surrounding civil society organizations, government structures, and other institutions in order to help meet our clients’ urgent needs. For the case at hand, we telephoned a nearby shelter called Bonne Espérance to see if they had sufficient room to house this woman and her two children. Bonne Espérance only houses vulnerable women and their small children, but it offers them education during their up-to-6-month stay, crèche (daycare) for the little children, and support for post-residency societal reintegration.
Luckily, Bonne Espérance responded in the affirmative. Since I played a significant role in this family’s case, Annel let me accompany her when she drove the family in her personal vehicle to their new temporary home. Bonne Espérance is located in Philippi, one of the South African townships. It blew my mind to see how different this community looked from its nearby neighbors: colourful shacks piled one atop another; roosters, cows, and goats ambling freely across the busy intersections; pervasive dirt; giddy school children in their uniform-best next to disheveled one-toothed vendors; piles of fresh fruit falling victim to mass swarms of flies and insects; chickens waiting on death-row to be consumed at a township braai; and oddly enough the cheerful façade of Bonne Espérance cloaked in protective barbed wire. The organisation’s courtyard and facilities evoked similarly unanticipated reactions of pleasant surprise. I watched “half-spectator / half-participant” as the family exited the vehicle into their new surroundings and wished “good hope” to my first case of critical life intervention development.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Real Refugees, Linguistic Labour, and African "Authenticity:" 1st Week at my Internship
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!
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!
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