Limpopo
Reflection 15 – 5 – 14
The final stages in this year’s
Limpopo Service Project were completing the final edits and additions to the
student’s born-free stories. I found it very enjoyable to re-read, edit, and
absorb myself into the life of a South African born-free student. They all
provided deep rewarding memoirs that allowed us to enter their world and live
it for a day. They all displayed strong characteristics of perseverance,
compassion, and humanity. Many of these student’s have already endured a
lifetime worth of pain and hardship, which I believe in the end will make them
stronger. I was very pleased to take part in such an enriching piece of
history, while having the opportunity to live in South Africa.
My learning moments were very vast
throughout the duration of this year volunteering in the Limpopo Service
Project as Communication’s Officer. To captivate on a few: our writing
workshops where I was able to see the ability of all of these young aspiring
students with such creative and colorful writing, the team building exercises
where we had to build trust in one another where we are integrating a plethora
of cultures, and initiating a school supply drive with Raquel Wilson, the
Limpopo Service Project Secretary. We were able to collect an amazing amount of
school supplies for the Limpopo students.
I have never had the opportunity to
be part of such a special team of students; therefore, this has challenged me,
enlightened me, and I walk away strengthened from it. This brings me forward to
the CAS presentation that Raquel Wilson and I collaborated on and performed, by
collecting photo’s progressively from our visits with the Limpopo students, and
the experiences we shared. We presented our presentation professionally
outlining the events that went well, our improvements, and we gave ideas and
solutions on how to make this a sustainable project. In the future, we will
advertise to recruit more members, as well as, create public awareness in our
community. This will be our continuation for next year. Our main project next
year is choosing a publisher to put our born-free book in print and unite the American
International School of Johannesburg and the Marumofase High School in Limpopo.
The learning moments and new skills I
have acquired this year, will be pertinent and helpful when we start up again
next year. We are rounding off the end of the year with no conflicts and no
outstanding issues, just a better understanding of the Ubuntu (humanity).
