Lily's Human Rights Training Weekend

The retreat we attended this past weekend was put on by Africa Unite, a nonprofit organization that works to educate and fight for human rights. Two of the women on our program are interning there; it's a great organization that does a lot of important work. Goedgedacht Farm was beautiful, we all stayed in little cottages, apartment set ups, etc. and there was such a beautiful view from every building. There was a dam that we were able to swim at and it was located on the side of a mountain, so that view was beautiful as well. 

There were about 30 people close to our age that were from South Africa, Malawi, Botswana, Somalia and Zimbabwe. We were split into groups and each selected a country that we would represent for the weekend. I was a part of Botswana and our group discussed a lot of things I did not know prior to the retreat; the country is highly controlled by the government and the current president is the previous president's son. The majority of people that come out of school end up working for the government because most industries are monopolized by the government, leaving little room for private business. This leads to a lack of motivation for entrepreneurship and a high unemployment rate. On the last night of the trip, we all had to present about our country to the "UN" to state the background of the country and why we could use money from the United Nations to help improve the country's situation. My group ended up winning a lovely handmade $200 billion check to help provide education about HIV/AIDS, to end mining and fund new industries, etc. 

We also participated in an exercise where they handed us a form that we had to fill out in order to seek asylum in a new country. The problem was, they read the direction to us in a different language and the form was in Cerole, which none of us spoke. Not surprisingly, we were unable to fill out the form and our application was denied. The point of the exercise was to show us what it was like for refugees who were fleeing to new countries. We then held discussions about refugees rights and how they should be protected by governments. We did other activities to discuss when our own rights had been violated and when we had seen rights being violated and done nothing to stop the situation. 

 As informative as the sessions were, I think we all learned the most from the discussions we had outside the sessions with other people on the trip. Everyone was coming from different backgrounds and many people were working to advocate for rights already. There was so much insight that we could gain from them and it was really interesting to see the different perspectives they had, especially about gender roles and sexuality, and to discuss how they viewed different topics. 

On another note, as part of our classes, we all need to come up with an activist project in which we dedicate our time to helping a community of people. It sounds vague because it's left open for us to interpret what we see is needed in different areas of Cape Town.

For my activist project, Eric, Meg, Drew and I will all be working together to help our the children at Maitland Cottage Hospital, where I also happen to be doing my internship! When we toured, the Matron pointed out the garden and talked about how it hadn't been kept up but that the kids loved being out there. We decided that we will start a Go Fund Me to raise money for our project. We hope to weed the garden and then plant flowers, fruits and vegetables for the children to be able to learn about and see when they go out to play. We were thinking of having some tomato plants, grape vines, and colorful flowers. Hopefully, we will also raise enough money to purchase craft supplies for the children; we were hoping to work with them to make bird houses and fix the cloth tipi that is outside but is falling apart. By doing this, we want to bring some fun and beauty into the everyday lives of the children who are stuck in a hospital for weeks at a time! 

Most of us are headed on the Garden Route this weekend and look forward to 3 days full of adventure and the outdoors!