The Kgosi Neighbourhood Foundation is rooted
in a community aspiring to do more.
Over my nine weeks this summer, I was able to work within the Kgosi Neighbourhood Foundation to provide a visual voice to their empowerment initiatives, all the while interacting with and learning from the incredible women, teachers, and families that trust in the services that KNF provides. More than I ever expected, I spent my time this summer learning from people who truly have helped shape my view of this world and my place within it. Was this summer difficult? You bet. Was this summer beautiful? Absolutely.
The empowerment initiatives provided by Kgosi move the parents of Jeppestown, South Africa beyond dependency to become self-sustaining champions who uplift themselves and their families. Educational programs allow the children in the community to enter into an involved, challenging academic setting.
KNF provides the space and freedom for parents and children to learn and grow. Why, you ask? Ubuntu.
The empowerment initiatives provided by Kgosi move the parents of Jeppestown, South Africa beyond dependency to become self-sustaining champions who uplift themselves and their families. Educational programs allow the children in the community to enter into an involved, challenging academic setting.
KNF provides the space and freedom for parents and children to learn and grow. Why, you ask? Ubuntu.
Where is Kgosi?
Jeppestown, like so many cities in the world today, is no stranger to tension. Situated in the eastern suburbs of Johannesburg, the neighborhood in which I lived is home to people, as I learned throughout my time in their midst, in search of better lives: for themselves, their families, and their children.
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Who is Kgosi?
The majority of its residents are immigrants—many fled other countries and rural communities in the hope of finding prosperity and success in the big city. Once they made it to Johannesburg, the reality of urban living set in. However, despite poverty, unemployment, and other social and economic challenges, families believe their lives are better in Jeppestown.
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Does Kgosi work?
KNF focuses on providing a basic level of skill with which women are more able to pull themselves and their families out of the poverty that encapsulates Jeppestown. Instead of ignoring the hundreds—thousands, millions—of persons who are deprived of the ability to participate in the dignity of work, KNF reasserts the value of the individual person. Ubuntu, right?
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"When given the freedom and opportunity to do so,
the women and children of South Africa will flourish."
Sewing
For those parents lacking formal education or training, piece work provides an opportunity to earn a small income by utilizing basic skills. One of the more in-demand skills is the ability to sew. Working with volunteers from KNF, the parents learn basic sewing techniques and skills that they wouldn’t otherwise have had the means to learn. In the future, this may help them find work, as well as create and repair articles of clothing for their families to use.
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Wings of Hope School
Founded in 2004, KNF began with a mission to bring educational light into the lives of vulnerable children in the Jeppestown neighbourhood and surrounding communities.
The Wings of Hope pre-school has provided members of the local community with excellent education to ensure school readiness, and academic success in the years that followed. KNF has now assisted 413 students and their parents by providing education, advocacy and compassionate care to those in need. |
Catholic Social Teaching invites us to love one
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Life and Dignity of
the Human Person Human life, by its nature, is something worth protecting-- even without a religious context, this holds true. The promotion of each person's dignity, through opportunity and equality, should be instinctual.
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Call to Community,
Family, & Participation Without the ability to participate in society as fully-functioning members, people are withheld the dignity they deserve. The family, as Pope Francis says, is a 'factory of hope' for all those involved.
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Rights and
Responsibilities Rights are such an important issue within the South African context, especially when for so long they were withheld from nearly all citizens. In order to build society, equality must be emphasized.
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Preferential Option
for the Poor "Without justice, especially
to the poor, the homeless and the hopeless, there will be no peace." - Fr. Theodore Hesburgh |
The Dignity of Work
and Rights of Workers Probably most applicable both to my time this summer and to any country with outstanding levels of inequity and unemployment, this tenet cannot be ignored. Through work, humanity is achieved.
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Solidarity
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Care for
God's Creation We're talking both the people living on this Earth and the Earth itself. We are all made in a dignified and holy image; just as God cares for us each day, we are called to imitate. Each person deserves this care.
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I firmly believe that, through organizations like the Kgosi Neighbourhood Foundation, love can be shown.
KNF is rooted in the belief that the people of Jeppestown, if given the freedoms they are currently deprived of, can and will flourish. As I have seen during my time with KNF, we are each called to care deeply for the development of each individual sitting in front of us, regardless of how many people there may be.
Christ calls us to be a light for those around us, even when times seem like one light cannot possibly make a difference. We cannot have solidarity or provide an option for the poor while failing to recognize the dignity that is deprived of our neighbors when they are unable to feed their families or provide shelter.
We are each called into a life of Ubuntu, of love for the lowest and for the highest of our brothers and sisters; the only way to live this way is to open our eyes to the common good.
KNF is rooted in the belief that the people of Jeppestown, if given the freedoms they are currently deprived of, can and will flourish. As I have seen during my time with KNF, we are each called to care deeply for the development of each individual sitting in front of us, regardless of how many people there may be.
Christ calls us to be a light for those around us, even when times seem like one light cannot possibly make a difference. We cannot have solidarity or provide an option for the poor while failing to recognize the dignity that is deprived of our neighbors when they are unable to feed their families or provide shelter.
We are each called into a life of Ubuntu, of love for the lowest and for the highest of our brothers and sisters; the only way to live this way is to open our eyes to the common good.
Journal: July 15 / Day 41
The people around me are strong. For a lot of them, there really has never been another choice -- either be strong or someone goes hungry, goes cold, goes without education. The people of this community have come from all over, yet here they all are in this one place. Some of them have battled extreme poverty, political hostility, natural disasters, all to make it to this day and to this city; so many have found asylum here from governmental and economic dysfunction. They are strong. Though they might not be able to cure their families' poverty just yet, they try.
"There is a hunger here for God. There is a hunger here for bread." - Pope John Paul II This quote has stayed with me this week -- when I see the people of Jeppestown, I hear these words. I hear them so vividly as I listen to the mothers at my school speak about what brought them to this place, what gives them strength to continue pursuing a life of hope instead of a life without. Inevitably there is given one of two answers (or, what's more likely, both): faith, a wholehearted trust that every pain, every hardship, every hunger will be taken care of by their God who loves them, and family, the constant and unfailing source of joy regardless of circumstance. These are the things in the lives around me that are fought for, rejoiced over, and pursued over all else. It is true -- there is a hunger for bread in this city, this school, this nation. But this hunger can pass; because of the faith of these people, it does. God alone sustains, while family overcomes. There is a fabric traditional to South Africa called shweshwe -- it is strong, beautiful, resilient. It represents the history of this nation and its people; it stands for the diversity, the liveliness, and the colors represented here. It can bend, it can be stretched to its limits, but it does not break. I think of the people around me as shweshwe people. They refuse to break, even if their worlds seem broken. I cannot walk down the streets of this city and be blind to the poverty that courses in its veins; I cannot pretend the people I've become close to live in circumstances unlike what I witness of these same streets. We are called to pay special attention to these neighbors of ours, to walk towards instead of away from, to lean in instead of jumping back. How can we rejoice in Christ if we fail to love those He loved the most, if we fail to seek solidarity with those He called His own, if we fail to acknowledge our call to them? The people in this place are strong, yes; this strength is not dissuaded by social circumstance but enlivened by heavenly promise and grace, This is strength of the most beautiful type. I think we could all use a little more beautiful strength in our lives. A strength that is not charged by depth of security in things but one that harnesses the joy that is formed through communion, through relationships. Ubuntu, I've come to learn, states that together, we are human. We only come to life through others. My love for these shweshwe people grows stronger in Ubuntu, and it calls me to care wholeheartedly and without reservation for the Body of Christ here in Jeppestown. I know I cannot ignore the context of this place; I am because the people around me are, this context is my own, we are together in it. We are called to live in these homes with these families, to walk in stride with the shweshwe people and find joy in their abundance, to be little with the littlest ones and great in God's love. If I receive my strength from the strength of those around me, I will not falter. We are called to carry Christ wherever we go; in this place, I'm sure, He will never be dropped. |