Katy Gabel and Verna Rainers
28 May 2008
(Page 2 of 3)
By 1995 when we started Uzima I had been involved for years in management, organization and the like. So when we began work with Uzima, we asked ourselves, "Should we go with a program, or shall we go with an idea?" We decided to go with an idea – to find out what young people thought about the issues in their lives. For me, that was a major break. I was not used to working like that. When you're working with the Ministry of Health and you're in charge of maternal health you have an MCH, you have it organized, you know the clinics and the like. But we needed to know the young people's perceptions of their issues.
Gathering a bigger picture of young people's ideas can't have been simple.
What we did was to host what we called a discussion forum. In fact, the first group almost threw us out. "How can you ask us about the issues in our lives," they asked. "You know the issue in our life. It's poverty. So give us money and get out."
So I told them "Unfortunately, we don't have money to give you and get out. And even if we did, would that be the best thing for you?"
"Yes, just give us the money," they said.
"And tomorrow?"
"Don't worry about tomorrow. Give us the money today."
So I asked them to think seriously, because the decision would be very important. "Are you telling me that if I don't come to you with money, I should not be interested in you and what's happening in your life? If that's what you're telling me then I will go."
"Ah, now you are being difficult," they said.
Then they talked in groups and said, "No, no, no - we still want you to be involved with us, and we still want you to be interested in us even if you don't have money." I told them we had saved a little money and it looked like a lot of money, but we have had to buy an office, and a desk, and a computer. Most of that money had gone. But we didn't want to stop because the money was not there. But they said, "How can we work with you? We are too poor to work."
And I said, "Well, you know, you must have something, because when God wanted Moses to undertake the responsibility of freeing the slaves from Egypt, he only asked Moses one question, and that question was 'What is in your hand?' He didn't ask Moses, 'Which army should I mobilize for you?'" So I said to them "What is in your hand?" And of course they said "Nothing." So I said, "Think again, because if you had nothing in your hand you would be dead."
That was the end of it; we had tea and bread and they went home. When we met the next week, they said "We found out what is in our hand. We are healthy young people. One thing we can do is protect this health, and use this health for good."
They decided to start a running club in mornings and evenings.
Now one of the most interesting outcomes was that, previously, most of the young people – mostly young men – would come home at midnight and beat their relatives… But when they started running they came home earlier because they were tired.
The slum mothers and relatives were so pleased with what we had done that they wanted to give ten shillings each – for them, a lot of money – to give our young people tea. So I told them to give the money directly to their children. They said, "If we give it to them, they'll misuse it." I said, "Give it to them and let's see what happens." The young people were so touched.
What other initiatives were taken?
You know, when you are poor, sometimes there is no time for caring relationships. So the mothers started a tea club. They meet for tea and have discussions before they go to run. Then they said to one another, "Why don't you go in the library and look up information on contraception?" or addiction, and so on.
So these tea sessions became discussion sessions around issues like poverty, sickness, violence by the youth and violence against youth, boyfriends and girlfriends. But the most dominant issue was idleness. They complained of boredom, so we showed them some dirt to clean up. They organized themselves and got to work to clean their environment.
When you're in a slum, you're very discouraged; you're poor. What people don't realize is that living like that drains your initiative. You are lethargic, you have apathy, you are depressed and you don't realize it. Depression is rarely discussed but if you have depression you can be sitting in dirt and not even see it.
Because of these early groups, we decided to organize Uzima around youth groups of 10 to 20 who come together with a facilitator from the organization to discuss their issues with each other and decide on the way forward. We found that the strength of the group is very important. We are community-driven people in Africa, so we tried to create that community sense. I've always said that in Africa if it doesn't happen in the community, it doesn't happen.
Out of these early meetings our first programs evolved. Our first program was called Clean and Safe Fun. The youth would tell us, "Just because there is Aids you want us to sit and have bored lives. But we want to have fun." So we asked them, "What kind of fun do you want to have?" And they said, "We want it to be clean and safe." So we started this program with football, netball, theatre, poetry, traditional story-telling, arts, dance…
They've gotten very good at putting on plays. What we haven't done yet is put on a show for money, which is something we would like to do to raise funds. Clean and Safe Fun is a very good program because they come together with their talents. One may be a playwright, one may be able to recite poetry, one can sing one can dance… so they put on quite interesting shows for their parents and for their communities.
The other popular program was the one on reproductive health. How do you keep yourself safe, happy and free from HIV/Aids and unwanted pregnancy? That became a very important area.
But the third, and most important area was economic empowerment. How do we economically empower ourselves so that we don't just become comfortable in this poverty, but become able to get out of it?
How did you address this?
We had to establish a small fund but we encountered a problem because we were giving loans to the children of poor parents. The parents wondered why we were giving money to their children but we were not giving them any money. The other problem was that some of the young people would disappear with the money. How do you trust them when the parents are not involved?
Out of this experience Uzima Foundation decided to form advisory committees within communities, made up of parents and community leaders, so that the youth are not without guidance. The youth group and the advisory committee form community-based organizations [and] these have become a very significant organizational development in this country. Even the National Aids Control Committee is controlled by some community-based groups.
We learned that even if you want to focus on youth, you can't do it in isolation without the community. In Africa, generational gaps are especially wide. Say your family is subsistence farming and they haven't had contact with computers or anything and are really living in another age. You come to high school and college and leave that situation. So there has to be an active process of inter-generational communication.
In dealing with this we came to issues of violence – violence amongst youth and violence against youth. From there we had to deal with governance – in family life, community life and in the national context. Uzima Youth have been very active in civic education. They have organized themselves around certain political candidates, and they have become civic leaders themselves.
We also started working with schoolchildren. One boy in Standard 6 had an alcoholic father. He started taking him to Uzima meetings and now the whole family is educated. Uzima really made a difference for them.
That's our motto – touching a life. It's reflected in our logo – a star – because we believe our youth are stars touching lives. We thought about so many names, but we went with Uzima because it means [in Kiswahili] the wholeness of life, apart from Eastern, Western, or African ideologies. It stands for itself; it's not tied to a particular group of people.
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