Today we spent the day with the Teboho Trust family. It was a wonderful spirit filled time. The children were very special. They run an all day Saturday program at Teboho. The program starts at 9am and it ended today at 7:30pm. They start off with their pledge, a few songs, their anthem, and a prayer. When they finish the prayer, they break up into various age groups. The first 1 ½ hours is dedicated to English, the next 1 ½ hours is dedicated math, that was followed by lunch, and life skills sessions. I spent the English and math sessions with a group of 4th and 5th graders. We put together a skit called “Girls and Boys with Attitudes.” The kids dreamed up the whole thing. I was the teacher in the skit, one of the students was the mother, and 3 others were students. The drama was about 3 kids who are so poorly behaved on their first day of school that the teacher ends up sitting at the desk holding his head by lunchtime. The kids come back from lunch, apologize to the teacher, give him hugs, and promise to change. The moral of the story as told to me by my students was “respect everyone, and treat them with kindness because everyone depends on everyone.” Next I worked on multiplication tables with the same group during the math session. The little girls I worked with were delightful. The rest of the day I spent hanging with the little kids, who taught me Zulu:Sanbonani – Greeting recognizing your presence.
Yebo - Yes
Ongani- How are you?
Sikona – I am fine.
They also made me draw butterflies, moons, and stars for them. Tristian and Lindsay did some mathematics exercises with them, but they were a bit rambunctious. The children were incredibly sweet. Children are children all around the world. It just so happens that these are children of poverty… children of Soweto. After hanging with the little ones for a while, I went to hang with the older boys for a rap session. I kind of got bumped out of the rap session when I challenged a young man named Mdo to a game of chess. I was a bit rusty, but when I had 2 queens, a rook, a knight, and a pawn left on the board to Mdo’s king, I decided to call it a draw. We ended off with the kids thanking us, and when we were almost about to finish, Tristian decided to kick it up a notch and treated us to an Omega Psi Phi chant and step routine. 
I have to admit, Tristian definitely did his thing. He also sparked off a series of students to demonstrate their own brand of stepping for us.
The final dancer wasn’t a student, but a mother. 
Let’s just say “the percolator” started in Africa. Mama got down for hers. We then gave out gifts and school supplies before closing in prayer, a song of praise, and the anthem.
Of course we couldn't leave without laying hands on God's vessel...
The BIG school issue here is not so much about education as it is about the societal factors that impact education because they impact a child’s ability to achieve academically.
Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
If current trends continue, the Millennium Development Goals target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely because of slow progress in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. Source 8
Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 3 million deaths in 2004. Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide. Source 9
Water problems affect half of humanity:
Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.Source 10
Number of children in the world
2.2 billion
Number in poverty
1 billion (every second child)
Shelter, safe water and health
For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:
640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
Children out of education worldwide
121 million
Survival for children
Worldwide,
10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
Health of children
Worldwide,
2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)
(http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats)
Poor children often do not have access to the resources that would improve their chances of being successful in school. Basic needs like food, clothing, school supplies, healthcare, stable housing and family life are too often an afterthought. It is highly unlikely that a hungry child with a toothache will be an academic standout. Educator, Paulo Freire, wrote about his family’s financial troubles which took them from affluent status to working poor, and how his grades suffered amidst his chronic hunger. The children in Soweto are living in desperate situations. They are desperate for help, but not desperate of spirit, not desperate of love, not desperate of courage, not desperate of gifts, not desperate of talents and intelligence and anointing. They need a fighting chance. That’s all Jose Bright is trying to give them, a fighting chance.
As a person who recently studied out of school spaces, I saw some similarities. The educational support program was fairly well structured compared to some others I have seen. I think that our presence made it run a little disjointed today, but I could tell by the homework assignments and the work that the kids were doing that this was a valuable program. They do much with very little. As with many programs of this nature, there is an intangible something that you just can’t touch or name, unless you are a person of faith that is. I was struck by the fact that there was prayer and open talk about God throughout, and it wasn’t in a cheeky, churchy way. There was a genuineness about the people, the children, everyone. It’s the kind of thing you experience when you come in contact with a people who have no other choice, but to trust God. Its an atmosphere for miracles to take place, for promises to be fulfilled, for the presence of God to be made manifest. Jose Bright demonstrates the Spirit of Christ… the kenotic anointing of one who is willing to humble himself, to pour out his spirit that someone else might be saved. The significance of Christ’s redemptive work was that He divested Himself completely (kenosis) into the community that He was sent to minister too. This is clearly evident in the Scriptures, Philippians 2:5-8:
“5 Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. 7 He made himself nothing;* he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.* 8 And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.” (NLT)
“When Jesus sought to win humanity to God, he became one of us, lived among us, voluntarily took upon himself our limitations.” Jesus was the personification of empathy as He emptied Himself into humanity, that He might truly stand in our shoes.
Written by Frederick A Hanna
No comments:
Post a Comment