If the whole organization of Ikamva Labantu had to be
described in one word, ‘committed’ would be one.
Ikamva Labantu started in 1963 by a woman named Helen Lieberman after
she experienced the squalor,
fear, poverty and desperation in the townships, but she also experienced compassion,
generosity and warmth in which she built the foundation of Ikamva.
Our Ikamva story
started at the Early Childhood Development (ECD) center. One of Ikamva’s many
undertakings includes working with educares (i.e. preschools). Too often in
townships children are dropped of in these educares that act as nothing more
than a place for shelter and hot meals, or just as concerning the classrooms
are severely overpopulated for the amount of space available and the ratio to
practitioners (i.e. teachers). Sometimes the structure itself can have
physical or mechanical issues making it unsafe to harbor children. In any or
all of these cases an educare is classified as ‘unregistered’; this is where
Ikamva comes in. Ikamva provides a variety of services to help combat these
issues to help educares become registered.
Some of these services include principal and practitioner certificate
programs, a stimulating curriculum, community based worker visits, and
financial support in the form of stipends. Simon and I were lucky enough to sit
in on one of the practitioner trainings, which gave insight to the extensive
energy, time, and resources Ikamva uses on the community. The training is a yearlong
program that gives women usually without either a high school or college degree
the proper skills and certification for employment. Transportation to the
center is provided as well as lunch, not to mention the certificate program is
completely free to the participants.
During the break
Simon came up with a name/dance icebreaker and he got really into it!
Our next stop was 2
minutes up the street to Ikamva’s Wellness Center. The Wellness Center offers
many services such as an optic center, and aromatherapy center, testing
services, and a myriad of workshops such as dental hygiene, preventative care,
and heart disease just to name a small few. It is here that much of our own
work is based. Simon and I were tasked with starting a pilot project of finding
the links and bridging the gap between the educares, clinics, and the parents.
Visiting the clinic was first on our list. After we were able to construct a
small card for the educares that allowed them to by pass lines when a child in
their educare is sick.
Our next set of
visits were to the educares themselves mainly to talk to principles, but
ironically most of them were at Ikamva’s principal training. However, we did
talk to some principles and gained useful information. Additionally, we were
able to see some of the conditions of the educares. The community based worker
that accompanied us pointed out some of the problems and what programs Ikamva
has to abate them.
Here is a picture of
one of the educares we went to.
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| Outside Mzamomhle Educare |
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| A spacious play area outside for the children |
What I particularly
liked about this one was that, in my opinion, it was the most realistic example
of a good educare in a township. It was a corrugated iron shack, however, it
was a good size, structurally sound, and had windows. Most importantly, inside
looked like any regular preschool. The walls were covered in
educational materials and student artwork. The student to teacher to space
ratio was sound. The kids wore uniform. The educare hit all the checkpoints for
common errors that CBW had pointed out in earlier educares or it was working
its way towards solutions of the issues. Although it wasn't the nicest educare
that we had seen all day, it showed a realistic goal that other educares can
achieve.
Besides the more serious health and community work we do there, I have
particularly enjoyed getting to know the people who work there. When we first got there, people were a little
more distant and formal to us, but you can tell the longer we’re there the more
people warm up to us. Last week there was an organization meeting when everyone
from the ECD center, Rainbow center (Ikamva’s youth center branch we visited),
and Headquarters came to the Wellness center. At lunch we reconnected with
people we met at ECD and Rainbow and they were like “When are you coming back
to Rainbow?!” or “We miss you at ECD!”, which was really nice to hear.
To put it briefly, the love and commitment that these people have for
this organization and their community is indescribable, but if I had to
describe it in one word…it’s beautiful.
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| Me outside the Wellness Centre |
-Summer Rak, ‘16
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