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News | Events | Academic | Arts and Culture | Sport | Clubs and Societies | The School | Past Pupils | Archive | |
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Vicky Myerson reports on some of her recent work After going
through the last month, I feel that I have experienced and seen so much, that I
didn’t quite know whom to tell first. As Mazkira of Netzer, I am used to writing
reports informing specific people about what Netzer South Africa has been doing, but so
much has happened over the last month, that I would like to share it with you, hence the
group e-mail. Early in June, I was fortunate
enough to meet an American student who was staying in the townships at a friend of mine.
The latter I am friendly with through working together last year on a cross-cultural camp
called “Howz’it”, (he works for Tikkun -outreach branch of the Jewish Board
of Deputies- and runs after school programmes in Bongolwetu). This chance meeting made me
realise for the first time how bizarre it was, that as a young white South African I had
not ever had the slightest curiosity to visit the townships –politically correctly
termed “black suburbs”. What perturbed me the most was the fact that a white
American had not only visited, but was staying there. My second chance meeting with an
Israeli Organisation wanting to start a “Peace Core” led me to my first visit.
Due to the combination of university and Netzer work, we went on our visit in the late
afternoon. We went through Nyanga, Guguletu, Bongolwetu, New Crossroads, Langa and
Philippi –stopping in the latter two to visit families. I suppose what shocked me
initially, was my complete naiveté of the situation we live in. I wasn’t expecting
much, I had seen the silhouette of tin shacks many times whilst driving on the highway,
and I shared the same nonchalance of visiting as I had about my safety –compared with
friends and family who heard later of my visit and who were shocked that I had not been
scared. If someone had asked me before I went what I thought I would see, I suppose I
would say shacks for the very poor people who probably come from rural areas, otherwise
low cost housing. The biggest surprise was the extent of poor facilities, that it
wasn’t limited to “rural” people, but that people with an education and a
job shared the same squalor. I know that poverty exists in the world, but to drive 15
minutes from my house and see people living with no running water, no electricity and no
sanitary facilities, made me aware of the extent of the bubble world that we have built
around ourselves. After the visits,
we went to a shebeen – meaning a pub (name from the time when it was illegal). There,
I saw how my sheltered world re-emerged in this world. People dressed smartly meeting at
the trendy club, no different to what one would find in the middle of town, except that
the people here are going back to different “homes”. Four days later, I left to
run our national seminar in Durban. This seminar is for 16-17 year olds who are interested
in becoming maddrichim. I was lucky enough to have an excellent informal educator sent by
Netzer Olami to help run programmes, who inspired not only the chanichim (participants)
but the maddrichim (leaders) as well. The first four days were spent discussing the core
issues around the running of Netzer in each centre, what we have done and what we want to
still do. The next seven days of what we called “Winter Machaneh Bamba”, was
themed around contemporary Israel. The programmes tackled heavy contemporary issues such
as religion and state, Zionism and aliyah, conflict and politics, understanding the
election process and present day parties, to looking at Netzer ideology, social action
projects in our community and learning a range of leadership and life skills that one uses
in ones everyday life. How does one measure the success of a camp? Well, I reckon that
getting 13 young people who have never been to Israel -10 of which have never been to a
Netzer event- to not only be excited for summer machaneh and be disappointed that they are
not maddrichim straight away, but for them to be eager to be active in their communities
and to initiate projects must be a measure of success! Bamba ended on the 9th
July, after which Michelle (head of Netzer CT), Lauren (Netzer Pretoria), Olivier (our
national Youth worker) and myself flew back to CT, repacked our bags and headed for the
next camp –Howz’it! Howz’it
camp was an initiative taken by Netzer and Tikkun last year. Highly sponsored, we run
a three-day camp for children from Bongolwetu Primary, Philippi and Hertzlia –Black,
coloured and white kids, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. The facilitators come from as mixed
cultural, religious and professional backgrounds! Whilst last year was highly successful,
we had very little support from the Jewish community in terms of attendance. This initial
setback led us to question if we were moving too fast –when canvassing, I was told by
a 15 year old from a Jewish Middle school, “That’s not where I am at the moment,
but you are doing good work”! I suppose it certainly left me rather speechless, but
on the other hand, it reflected the attitude that is not verbalised due to the probability
of it sounding politically incorrect. There is no medium, even in today’s
technological age that can capture the feeling on a “Howz’it” camp, but the
energy that becomes so tangible combined with the heart-touching evaluations by the
facilitators, validated the hard work that went into making the camp a reality! |
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