e-Uxolo
Periodic Newsletter of the Quaker Peace Centre

 
Vol. 2, no. 1
April  2006

Dear Friend

The year started with the staff at the Centre engaging in a planning session for the year ahead.

The design of the projects for this year is very exciting. A new project, the Young Women’s Forum will start soon.  Other current projects are the Alternatives to Violence Project, Diversity, HIV/Aids and Nutrition, Positive Discipline and Youth at Risk.

Our projects are aimed at addressing some of South Africa’s biggest problems – violence against women, racism and prejudice, youth who are at risk of coming into conflict with the law, and the scourge of HIV and Aids.

We anticipate a productive year and will keep regular contact with you concerning the progress of our work.

Your unceasing support of our work is a vital link for the success of our projects.  We look forward to having you as a partner in our exciting work.


Alternatives to Violence Project

Facilitators of the Centre ran a 3-day Basic Alternatives to Violence Project at a high school in Delft.  Eighteen girls and 8 boys in Grade 10 who were identified by their teachers, completed the course.  Commenting on one of the exercises, a participant said that it was her first time to work with black people doing a task from beginning to end.  Another participant said that he did not realise that violence did not only occur in his area, but in areas of other participants as well.  The intervention enabled these participants to engage in working with others and received acknowledgement that they are not alone with the problems they face.  The Project was made possible through funding by the Safe Schools Division of the Western Cape Education Department.


Election Observation

We observed the municipal elections on 1 March 2006 at 15 voting stations in Delft.  This was made possible by recruiting and training 20 election observers from the area.  Three members of the Cape Western Monthly Meeting volunteered as observers as well.  Most of the observers were women.  Our findings were that overall the election process was free and fair in Delft.  The majority of the voters cast their votes secretly and without intimidation.  We saw this as a valuable project to which we could bring and expand our experience, expertise and knowledge in this field of work.
 

 
 
 

Election observers 


Diversity

Continuing to work with the same school we worked with last year (a primary school in Delft), we have now progressed to work with the teachers and not with the pupils.

As a start to the programme we participated in a workshop offered by the Cape Town Holocaust Centre. The workshop dealt with the reality of genocide, in order for participants to understand the importance of not standing by when bad things happen to other people, and to stand up as witnesses and protest.  Genocide does not start as genocide but with prejudice and discrimination. The educators were very moved by this and said it opened their eyes to their own situation and the divisions among themselves. They expressed their need for more workshops of this nature. Two focus groups were conducted with the teachers to establish their main concerns.  These will be addressed at a weekend residential workshop. They expressed a desire to deal with issues of cliques and favouritism among teachers, unequal access to opportunities at the school, insecurity about their employment and overcoming their distrust of one another. They are very excited about the forthcoming weekend workshop.


Positive Discipline

Two full-day workshops were conducted at a conference in Cape Town.  These were co-ordinated by an organisation called School Conferences.  The one dealt with anger management, and had 20 participants, while the other dealt with positive discipline with 41 participants in attendance.  During the positive discipline workshop, participants were asked to use two models, one punitive and the other positive discipline.  Two case studies were used to consider the possible results.  Below are some of the comments as expressed by participants:


 
 
 
 

Participants in a  workshop at the Schools Conference 


HIV/Aids and Nutrition

One 2-day workshop was presented on the Growing and Use of Herbs in Tafelsig and another one in Khayelitsha.  Sixteen and 12 unemployed women participated in the workshops respectively. Many of the participants had not used fresh herbs before and did not know of their nutritional importance. Some members who had used herbs before shared their knowledge and experiences with the group which most definitely added to the success of the workshop.

One 2-day Food Preservation and Processing workshop was presented to 12 members of a women’s club in Woodlands. The workshop was presented in partnership with Soil for Life. A similar workshop was presented to 16 women in Khayelitsha who all work in pre-schools and educare centres and another one with 14 women from Khayelisha, 6 of whom were recruited by UMAC.

The HIV/Aids and Nutrition project was made possible through generous funding by the National Development Agency through the Western Cape Networking AIDS Community of South Africa.


Youth at Risk

We are now in the ninth week of our Purpose Driven Youth project at a primary school in Delft.  This name has been selected so that young people who are part of the programme are not negatively labelled.  Unfortunately, during the first workshop shots were fired, killing a shop owner nearby.  This made us acutely aware of the reality in which these children grow up.

One hundred and thirty children participated from the start of the programme and were divided into one Afrikaans and one English speaking group.  Our facilitators see them on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.  When one group was involved in workshops, the other was engaged in sports.  We found that the children responded well to sports as it naturally appealed to their talents, team spirit and abilities.  During the life-skills workshops our facilitators felt that some of the children had difficulty in getting in touch with their emotions, and concluded that this might be one of the reasons why they become disruptive.  Some participants were enthusiastic about the sports activities, but did not want to come to the other workshops.  Workshops were also offered on affirmation, arts, drama and writing skills.

Give now

You may use your credit card to give to the work of the Quaker Peace Centre. Go to www.givenow.org and type Cape Town into the search field which will bring you to the Cape Town Quaker Peace Centre Committee.

More about the Quaker Peace Centre

Please visit our website www.quaker.org/capetown

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