Today is youth day here. It commemorates June 16 1978 where students revolted against the education regime during the Apartheid. The revolt was against a governmental mandate for all schools to teach in Afrikaans – even for the students who do not even speak Afrikaans.
We take a break from work here at PUSH and its celebration onsite all day. PUSH is the client that Marcel and I are consulting at. PUSH, which stands for Persevere Until Something Happens (pretty cool name in my opinion) is a not-for-profit that has programs centric around HIV/AIDS and it serves in the community of Soweto. The children and care-givers break into dance and song and this happiness and rythmn. Even the rest of the other fellows who also came onsite for the day also joined in the dancing – yup, and I have it all on video.
The highlight of the day for me was when everyone broke into acapella gospel songs switching from Xulu into Xhosa into English, the former 2 utterly incomprehensible but undeniably beautiful. I suppose that is what sums up the people at PUSH – serving a diverse community with a single spirit fueled by hope. Well, I suppose the other highlight of the day was also when Damien fell off the children’s jungle gym.
It has been a good first week and I look forward to the next weeks.
– Sophia, Emzingo Fellow – June 2011, PUSH (Persevere Until Something Happens)