SHAWCO-- volunteering

I recently signed up for a student volunteer group at UCT called SHAWCO (Student Health and Welfare Centres Organisation) because the humanitarian side of the Rotary scholarship is just as important if not more than the academic side for me. People that volunteer with SHAWCO use their talents to go into impoverished areas to teach or tutor. I decided to teach art (which includes painting, drawing, music, dance, drama, and literature) because it’s one of my passions, but mostly because I remember the way art made me feel growing up. Art was always my favorite subject because you could express yourself using a variety of methods.

Today was my first day of teaching—if you could call it that. I feel like today was more about classroom management (i.e. trying to control the kids) and learning names. The class is full with a total of 30, 3rd- 5th grade students from Manenburg. Manenburg is a small town where people of color were forced to move to during Apartheid (i.e. “Kicked out of Cape Town”). Next time I go and teach I will most definitely take pictures because my words will not accurately describe what I saw. As our bus pulled into the town I saw rows upon rows of shacks (no bigger than a room you could put a twin size mattress in), children running barefoot in the filthy streets, farm animals on the street, dirt roads, and barbed wire everywhere. Children would literally cling to our van as we pulled into the school. The school was a one story building made of cinderblocks and the classroom doors faced the outside (like a motel). There were large classrooms, chalkboards, and desks, but the thing that struck me as odd is that I didn’t see any evidence of kids owning any part of the school. By that I mean I didn’t see any artwork, stories, books, any supplies of any kind—it was just an empty building. This school is a far cry from where I just did my student teaching—Ashley River Creative Arts in Charleston, SC—where every space was covered with a child’s work and the environment was friendly.

Overall though the kids were friendly and wanted to know my name, play with my hair and show me different dances and sing me their songs. I thought my day was going to be easy and that we would accomplish a lot, but sadly I was mistaken. After I started the lesson a grown male and older female walked into the room (the school officials). They had a presence about them that even I found terrifying. I continued the lesson and then some of the kids started to cut up. The older female took out her cane and hit several of the children very forcefully. The male started to scream and say what I presume to be nasty things to them in a different language. From that moment things just began to get more chaotic. My role quickly went from teacher to crowd controller. How can one expect students to learn and behave when the emotion of fear is present?

At the end of the day as I was leaving, many of the children gave me hugs and I assured them that I would be back next week. I started to wonder how many people they see come and make promises only to never return…

I will go back and I will try again.

For more information about SHAWCO, please visit www.shawco.org