There are memes all over the internet that poke fun at the situation when someone receives a holiday card. Instead of reading the card, the recipient’s mind is focused on the subsequent gift. Memes are funny only because they’re relatable. However, to the children of Manzini, Swaziland, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Walking through a home for orphaned girls of Manzini Youth Care this past July, I couldn’t help but noticing that the only thing most of the girls had hanging above their beds was a single card. These cards were made through a contest held in the high school I graduated from. The house mother informed me that the 13 girls and four young boys who inhabited the home, read these cards daily. In fact, she said the cards had been keeping the kids happy for over six months.
It is no secret that Africa is sensational. Big and gorgeous, with breathtaking natural beauty, it also unfortunately saddled with issues that possess no easy fix. However, this is not an anecdote attempting to condemn you for the things you may take for granted. Though it may seem a world away, there is a self-awareness achieved by helping, both in Africa and at home. Said differently, there is a grave importance to reaching beyond yourself. Sadly, many of our interactions in Africa are tainted with a disturbing colonial mindset. We pride ourselves on a certain ethnocentrism, from which we sometimes hope to absolve our guilt. There seems to be an attitude of one-upmanship among western travelers in developing countries, we compare and discuss our hardship faced abroad. What a heartless commentary when people have no choice but to endure those circumstances. By 2100, Africans will account for nearly 50 percent of the world’s population. A middle class is manifesting, and economies are growing. Yes, Africa is irrefutably changing, yet we must still do what we can to cultivate global awareness and protest injustice.
Swaziland is a small, landlocked country located in Southern Africa. It is slightly smaller than New Jersey, and about 66 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. It is also the country with the highest infection rate of HIV and AIDS in the world. Due to this disease, there are an estimated 70,000 orphaned children in Swaziland today.
My sister, my father and I belong to a non-profit organization called Swazi Legacy. As indicated on their website, Swazi Legacy strives to erase the inequities that exist among the children of our world by raising awareness and fostering social activism. All of us at UW-Madison are truly lucky to live and work in a supportive educational environment that provides us with the tools necessary to succeed. It should also be our duty to advocate for all individuals, no matter how far away, to have that same right.
Together, as a group of students, teachers, friends, and family, we refurbished classrooms, painted murals, cleaned and rebuilt sleeping areas, but most importantly engaged with the students of the schools–reading, playing sports, and discussing our dreams and goals with them. As cliché as it may be, these kids are just like you and me. They want to be doctors, nurses, pilots, engineers. They asked us why we were there helping them when so many places in Africa were much worse off; they had clean running water and school, they explained. In the West, many of us think Africa has everything to learn from us, when really we have so much to learn from them. Most students have one pair of shoes, one pen, a cockroach-infested mattress, and their dreams are to help other people. They just need the resources to get there.
All of us were drawn to the children. They, like many people of Swaziland, are bundles of joy and laughter. They are radiant, and they sing nursery songs beautifully. Similarly, the older children were creative, innovative. After one of the work days, we left some supplies behind so we could use them the next day. The following morning, we walked up the street to the school to see boys named Trevor and Randy running on the grounds with bamboo sticks tied to the paint rollers we had left behind, using them as toy car contraptions. I looked around to see other children playing with exquisite cars they had made with leftover wire, engineering them to have seats, doors, and a driving wheel. Standing there and standing all over Swaziland and South Africa, I was astounded by the beauty and the innovation presented before me. Even in a continent whose future is uncertain, the poeple are taught to have an astonishimng amount of optimism, something we could all learn from.
Olivia is a sophomore majoring in computer science. What steps do you think should be taken to erase inequities among people worldwide? Send all questions, comments and concerns to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
