First volunteers have gone to South Africa
Tue 29th July 2008
The first group of volunteers went to Eshowe in South Africa for one week in June. They were working on a house for a local family together with two local builders and local volunteers.
Here are the thoughts of some of the colleagues who went to Eshowe:
Heike Heinzelmann:
The family we were building the house for, as many, many families in Sub-Saharen Africa, is different to most families we knew.
Mathombi Shobede is looking after her five nieces Senzeka, Ntombizakhe, Sbongile, Nelisiwe and Ntobe, who have lost their parents to AIDS.
The family lived in a mud hut with no water, no electricity and no toilet facilities. The single room hut was about the size of a standard bedroom over here. Two of the girls had to sleep outside every night. The water had to be carried in 20l containers from the river or the next water tank on their heads.
Their furniture consisted of one mattress, a small table and a few boxes and suitcases.
The land is dry, not much grows in the mountains of Eshowe. The family survives currently on what an uncle who is living in Durban is able to bring to the children at the end of each month and on the generosity of local neighbours who provide a little food for the children.
Every morning the children, apart from the youngest, go to school dressed in clean uniforms and with a bright smile. Everybody is happy to have a school nearby; they know education is the only way out of poverty.
In the afternoon on their way back home the girls often passed the building site and watched the progress on the new house, which is right next to the high school.
In five days we managed to build the block work up to roof level and to get the concrete floor in together with a fantastic team of local volunteers and two local builders. It was amazing to work together with these people and to experience the solidarity of a community were everybody is poor and there is not much to share.
When the local volunteers will have finished the house, the family will live in a small house, but it will be big enough for all six, built of concrete blocks and covered by a metal roof. They will have three small bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and their own water tank. And if the goats haven’t eaten them already, they will also have three fruit trees. But most importantly of all they will have a shelter at night, and South African winter nights can be cold as we experienced ourselves. They have a place to grow up and to learn and a chance to have a better life in the future.
Matt Lewis:
The whole experience touched me in so many ways and made me stop and think how lucky we are. I will never forget what we all experienced in Africa and having been I would love to still support what Stephen George & Partners is doing. Helping people less fortunate than ourselves is such a human and empowering thing.
The trip was extremely special and touching in so many ways, chances to make a difference don’t come very often in life and on that trip I hope I did.
Simon Dennis:
There is no Mains water. There is no electricity. There is no tarmac on the roads. But for the people for whom this is home there is an overwhelming feeling of community. Maybe it’s all they know, but they certainly seem happy – the big smile on the children’s faces says it all. Somebody said the children have eyes but even bigger smiles – infectious smiles.
Although people seem to be laid back, they still seem to have the hope, the vision and the passion; they just seem to be lacking the means. I guess that’s where the wider side of what we are doing comes into it, the efforts back home to raise the money for this (and the many more homes that we will hope to build ourselves). But there are other things we have brought with us, less clearly defined, but much more important. Coming out here, bringing enthusiasm, the hope, the commitment all stand out as far more important. I don’t believe that this would be happening without our efforts.
I have lost count of the number of times I have held back tears today. Some of them tears of anger, tears of frustration, tears of joy and happiness. Today we handed over the house to the family, well as much of it as we have managed to complete.
As an architect I have built, we have all built, designed, procured, delivered many houses and other buildings, each with their own challenges, their own problems, their own solutions, that have made them unique (and yes, some, their own reasons for not being completed on time!) but this one stands alone from all of those as the most remarkable building I have built. It might be simple, it might be small and in a league of it’s own from all of the other projects I have built, but the significance of this, the difference it will make is what make it truly remarkable – the building I am proudest to have been involved with. To give five children their lives back after the loss of their families, to give them all a place within their community, a base for their future, a base from which to establish their lives – a future!
Steve Williams:
South Africa is a difficult country to understand. It is a turbulent nation, still licking her wounds borne out of modern day prejudice, oppression and violence that is difficult for us to comprehend. It was the ideal place for Stephen George and Partners to take Respect 2008+. We have learned in Africa the true meaning of Respect in its purest sense. Respect means freedom, democracy and equality. Respect means diversity, responsibility and perhaps most importantly it means reconciliation. It is synonymous with working together. Respect is a valuable and fragile commodity, it must be earned and is oh so easily lost.
There are too many Africans left behind in poverty, despair and powerlessness. Too many people are without adequate shelter, jobs and the dignity of self reliance. Their human capital base is being further eroded by the pandemic of HIV/Aids that is stealing those in the prime of their lives and depriving children of motherly love.
So why did we travel to Africa – what motivated us to do it ? Was it just a free ride, some time off work or was there a deeper and more significant meaning and purpose ? We did it to redress the imbalance and because we have been privileged in our upbringing to know the security of family warmth and love ? Just what defines family anyway ? Even if a family does not involve blood ties or marriage, it may be longstanding, committed and supportive. A family of friends, or community members, who chose to live, or work together. Not all families are the same but all families should have the same rights and opportunities.
Are we glad we went to Africa – remember if nothing else a group of small children shuffle nervously forward, refusing to make eye contact, embarrassed and appearing too nervous to speak. They sang with the most unbelievable and amazing power a song we will never forget – a repeating one line harmony, “We Will Never, Never, Never, - Never Give Up ! ” How good was that ? It said it all ! These small children stand in the front line of adversity day on day, we were just brief visitors to their world.
Fundamental to the core of the fabric of family life is the simple right to a decent home. Over several decades Stephen George & Partners have been instrumental in the production of many thousands of family homes and also a significant number of statement buildings. We are proud that on a hillside, high in the bush of South Africa there is a statement building that shouts-out-loud about the people we are. This simple homestead will provide security and shelter and lift out of the spiralling poverty trap, a small family of this planets most vulnerable people. In the fabric of its construction, each of us leaves behind a small but significant part of our heart and soul.
We leave Africa better, more understanding and more complete people than we were when we arrived. It may be difficult for those who have yet to take this journey to understand how evocative this experience has been. There is a genuine bond forged between us that will never be broken. We have shown that we are not ashamed to cry, to speak and share openly our hopes dreams and aspirations and we felt better and stronger for it. The trip may be over but the journey has only just begun. In Africa we broke down personal barriers – we worked, laughed and played with her people. We discovered that if you strip back the shallow veneers that make us different we are ultimately deep down inside just the same. It is only our opportunities that remain unequal. The Zulu people helped us to understand them and in doing so to better understand ourselves.
2 ½ million years ago our earliest common ancestor – the matriarch, “Mrs Ples” stood up on her hind legs and walked tall in Africa. In June 2008 twelve of her descendants, from a diverse range of religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds stood up on a hillside, tall, proud and united by a simple common purpose and desire to do some good and make a difference for people we didn’t know and had never met. There, we were one family - reunited.
Humanity was born in Africa. Ultimately we are all African.
