I have wracked my brain trying to figure out how to put my experience at Bophelong into words. There is no text I can construct that will do it justice. I will give it my best shot and can only hope to paint a picture with my words that you can see with your heart.
The Shooting Youth project got its start by an association with another project called Father a Nation. Father a Nation, founded by Craig Wilkinson, is a truly mind-blowing initiative. It aims to heal the community by empowering men and training them to be good community leaders and offer much needed support and guidance to the community youth. We were fortunate to get a guided tour of Bophelong from two Father a Nation representatives (aka: FANS), Khotso and Themba. We were later joined by the rest of the FAN family who warmly welcomed us into their community.
The idea for the Shooting Youth project is to capture every waking moment in the lives of the youth in South Africa, and first, in Bophelong. This meant that Brynn and I had to leave JHB at 4am to be in Bophelong by 6:30, in time to join the children we were following on their walk to school. School is a 5 kilometre walk away with many pit-stops at other houses for more children to gather and walk to school together.
With sleep filled eyes and nerves abundant we parked the car at the FAN office and continued our journey on foot. We walked to the home of the first child, then the second and were joined by more curious little faces as we made our way to the first school. It was in the first steps of our journey that Brynn made a very important observation. We could count the amount of adults we saw on one hand. Bophelong is known for being a child-headed community – but what does that mean and why?
There were significantly more children than adults in the community, partly because a great deal of parents have passed away from AIDs and related illness and partly because the remaining adults leave their homes before the sun comes up to make it to their respective jobs outside of the community on time – be that cleaning a suburban home or packing groceries at a convenient store.
This leaves a lot of children unattended and a great deal with more responsibility than they should handle at their age. Children were walking children to school, doing the morning house chores, dressing siblings and making food. I used to complain about doing the dishes and feeding the dogs when I was younger. If these children complained, who would hear them?
After dropping the children at school the FANS took us to meet Emily – A warm mother figure to hundreds of orphaned children. Emily runs five orphanages in Bophelong with nothing more than God’s good grace and a heart-melting smile. With a loud laugh she showed us her ‘pantry’ saying “everything you see in here is to last us until the end of the year”. My eyes swelled with tears as I glanced over to a caged cupboard with no more than a few cans of tomato and onion mix, one large bag of mielie meal and some other dried goods in boxes. “How is this possibly going to feed hundreds of children till the end of the year?” I thought. The truth is, it won’t. When we brought up the subject of government funding Emily let out a laugh that indicated our naivety. She went on to tell us that for every thirty children in the orphanage they would maybe receive funds for three. When she runs out of food she pleads with the subsidised schools for aid who are not always willing or able to assist her.
We visited some of the other orphanages run by Emily and were blessed with performances of song and dance by the children. In the orphanage for children aged 6 – 9 they sang us a song about AIDs. I cried as I heard these hard little voices tell AIDs to “go away” and that “this is my body, no one can touch”. What a powerful song with a message to the children that they have a voice and that “no” means “no”.
There are so many challenges facing the youth of Bophelong it would be impossible to list them all, from alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution and peer pressure to crime and AIDs.
My intention by sharing these sad facts with you is not to leave you feeling depressed but rather to give you context. The situation may seem heart wrenching to most people reading this but it is just the way life is for those in Bophelong. They know no different. Each day the youth of Bophelong face these challenges and at the end are either victorious or not, only to face another day which could go either way.
However, through the tall trees of tragedy are sunbeams of hope.
The hope I speak of manifest in the selfless work of the FANS of Father a Nation. The FAN team works day in and day out on after-school sport activities including football leagues and swimming lessons at the community pool. They play scrabble and chess and help kids with their home-work. They have bible studies and youth groups and tons of emotional support. Each FAN has at least five children under their guidance and there are 25 FANS so far. A potential FAN undergoes extensive training to ensure the right man for the job. No man is perfect and everyone needs a little healing so it is important to understand
that these FANS are just ordinary people. They have grown up in the community, or neighbouring communities, and faced much the same challenges as the youth do today. This means that each FAN makes a conscious choice to use their powers for good. They have dedicated their lives to making Bophelong a better place.
The most solid observation I made during my Bophelong experience is just what a difference the FANS have made in two short years and just how much the community needs their continued involvement.
We have decided to focus on the Bophelong community as a whole as
there is so much more to the life of a Bophelong child than attending school.
Each child performs an intricate dance for their lives around the abundant
challenges they face. The blessed ones are those whose dances get choreographed by the actions of hard working FANS.
Bophelong holds a library of stories I am only happy to share.
Some are happy, some are sad, but all of them are real. Stay tuned for more
instalments of the Bophelong story.
The Shooting Youth project got its start by an association with another project called Father a Nation. Father a Nation, founded by Craig Wilkinson, is a truly mind-blowing initiative. It aims to heal the community by empowering men and training them to be good community leaders and offer much needed support and guidance to the community youth. We were fortunate to get a guided tour of Bophelong from two Father a Nation representatives (aka: FANS), Khotso and Themba. We were later joined by the rest of the FAN family who warmly welcomed us into their community.
The idea for the Shooting Youth project is to capture every waking moment in the lives of the youth in South Africa, and first, in Bophelong. This meant that Brynn and I had to leave JHB at 4am to be in Bophelong by 6:30, in time to join the children we were following on their walk to school. School is a 5 kilometre walk away with many pit-stops at other houses for more children to gather and walk to school together.
With sleep filled eyes and nerves abundant we parked the car at the FAN office and continued our journey on foot. We walked to the home of the first child, then the second and were joined by more curious little faces as we made our way to the first school. It was in the first steps of our journey that Brynn made a very important observation. We could count the amount of adults we saw on one hand. Bophelong is known for being a child-headed community – but what does that mean and why?
There were significantly more children than adults in the community, partly because a great deal of parents have passed away from AIDs and related illness and partly because the remaining adults leave their homes before the sun comes up to make it to their respective jobs outside of the community on time – be that cleaning a suburban home or packing groceries at a convenient store.
This leaves a lot of children unattended and a great deal with more responsibility than they should handle at their age. Children were walking children to school, doing the morning house chores, dressing siblings and making food. I used to complain about doing the dishes and feeding the dogs when I was younger. If these children complained, who would hear them?
After dropping the children at school the FANS took us to meet Emily – A warm mother figure to hundreds of orphaned children. Emily runs five orphanages in Bophelong with nothing more than God’s good grace and a heart-melting smile. With a loud laugh she showed us her ‘pantry’ saying “everything you see in here is to last us until the end of the year”. My eyes swelled with tears as I glanced over to a caged cupboard with no more than a few cans of tomato and onion mix, one large bag of mielie meal and some other dried goods in boxes. “How is this possibly going to feed hundreds of children till the end of the year?” I thought. The truth is, it won’t. When we brought up the subject of government funding Emily let out a laugh that indicated our naivety. She went on to tell us that for every thirty children in the orphanage they would maybe receive funds for three. When she runs out of food she pleads with the subsidised schools for aid who are not always willing or able to assist her.
We visited some of the other orphanages run by Emily and were blessed with performances of song and dance by the children. In the orphanage for children aged 6 – 9 they sang us a song about AIDs. I cried as I heard these hard little voices tell AIDs to “go away” and that “this is my body, no one can touch”. What a powerful song with a message to the children that they have a voice and that “no” means “no”.
There are so many challenges facing the youth of Bophelong it would be impossible to list them all, from alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution and peer pressure to crime and AIDs.
My intention by sharing these sad facts with you is not to leave you feeling depressed but rather to give you context. The situation may seem heart wrenching to most people reading this but it is just the way life is for those in Bophelong. They know no different. Each day the youth of Bophelong face these challenges and at the end are either victorious or not, only to face another day which could go either way.
However, through the tall trees of tragedy are sunbeams of hope.
The hope I speak of manifest in the selfless work of the FANS of Father a Nation. The FAN team works day in and day out on after-school sport activities including football leagues and swimming lessons at the community pool. They play scrabble and chess and help kids with their home-work. They have bible studies and youth groups and tons of emotional support. Each FAN has at least five children under their guidance and there are 25 FANS so far. A potential FAN undergoes extensive training to ensure the right man for the job. No man is perfect and everyone needs a little healing so it is important to understand
that these FANS are just ordinary people. They have grown up in the community, or neighbouring communities, and faced much the same challenges as the youth do today. This means that each FAN makes a conscious choice to use their powers for good. They have dedicated their lives to making Bophelong a better place.
The most solid observation I made during my Bophelong experience is just what a difference the FANS have made in two short years and just how much the community needs their continued involvement.
We have decided to focus on the Bophelong community as a whole as
there is so much more to the life of a Bophelong child than attending school.
Each child performs an intricate dance for their lives around the abundant
challenges they face. The blessed ones are those whose dances get choreographed by the actions of hard working FANS.
Bophelong holds a library of stories I am only happy to share.
Some are happy, some are sad, but all of them are real. Stay tuned for more
instalments of the Bophelong story.
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