Emily realizing how much she's learned

This week I am lucky enough to have one of my friend (Brian) visiting me in Cape Town until Monday. He arrived here on Tuesday and is very interested in experiencing South Africa beyond just tourist attractions, which makes my job as his guide much easier. I immediately introduced him to the reality of "Two South Africa's" when I took him with me on Wednesday to my internship in Kuyasa after having spent the night in a nice hotel in town. Though the shock of that reality was written on his face all day, I'm glad he was able to experience more than the affluence of the city and suburbs. It has been really interesting to show him around and teach him different things about South Africa because it is making me realize how much I have learned in the time I've been here. 

While Brian was with us on Wednesday Kayla and I were putting on a workshop for women in the community on human rights. Thanks to Africa Unite we had a good idea of how to effectively introduce the concepts associated with human rights. We also spent a good deal of time on women's rights as they apply to the mission of our organization, Prevention in Action. I was initially very nervous about the workshop. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of me as a white foreigner preaching to a group of black women living in situations I have only ever observed. However, Kayla and I tried to make the workshop more of an open discussion rather than merely us talking at the group and I think that paired with translation and input from our advisors at PIA (Mums and Coco) helped to prevent that. I hope that as time goes on people in the community will feel increasingly comfortable giving us their input on their experience of rights. 

Working with Prevention in Action continues to be an incredible experience but I sometimes find myself taken aback by the amount of unearned respect Kayla and I receive as outsiders. Last week when we were visiting the homes of women to listen to their stories, after translating a story of long term abuse at the hands of her husband Coco asked Kayla and I what we would advise her to do. It was jarring to realize that even the women that we work with assume that our level of knowledge and know-how is so high. It mostly made me sad that anyone would assume that we would know better as outsiders than women within the community. As we continue work with Prevention in Action, I hope to emphasize the importance of the voices and input of the women within the community rather than outsiders coming in for a couple of months. The alternative seems incredibly harmful and unsustainable to me.