My day in the township of Khayelitsha

Wednesday, May 23: KHAYELITSHA

My day in the township of Khayelitsha.

                Khayelitsha, which is Xhosa means “New Home” is said to be the largest and fastest growing township in South Africa. The township was established in 1985 and large numbers of people were forcefully relocated there under the Apartheid system. Today, Khayelitsha has between half a million to 2 million inhabitants. About 90% of the residents are black with the remainder being colored. There is a lot of diversity in terms of housing. There are a lot of shacks and informal housing, but there are also small houses built of sturdy material, often having a shack attached to the back to add additional space. There were stray dogs running about everywhere.  The township is so large that it has now been split up into 22 sub-sections. The place that I was mainly in was called Harare and it is a newer section of Khayelitsha. Around 70% of residents still live in shacks and one in three people have to walk 200 meters or further to access water.

                In 2010, FIFA built the Football for Hope centre in Khayelitsha which includes a building with about 10 different rooms and a turf mini soccer field. Grassroot Soccer (the organization that I am interning with) was selected to run the Football for Hope centre.

                In the morning, I was given a short tour and then allowed to sit in on the staff’s logistics meeting. The staff includes two year long Grassroot Soccer (GRS) interns and about 10 or so coaches and logistic coordinators that come from the townships. At the logistics meeting, they were planning a HCT event (HIV/AIDS Counseling and Testing Event). They also were planning new programs to implement including Generation SKILLZ (which is a program for kids aged 13-18) and a SKILLZ Holiday (which is like a summer camp for the week off they get in “winter”).

                The next part of my day was spent following around a young woman (who previously worked for UNICEF) who is currently working on a grant from the London School of Tropical and Infectious Disease on a RCT (Randomized Control Trial). This money from this grant is being used to precisely calculate if the Grassroot Soccer programs are increasing the knowledge of HIV/AIDS and reducing the number of HIV positive young people.  This will be one of the first RCT’s that is trying to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of Sport for Development.

                The RCT will test 3,000 South African 9^th graders in 2012. The testing involves getting consent to go into a high school in the township (the Department of Education of South Africa is strict in terms of when you can come in, but they leave it up to the individual school to decide if they let NGOs and non-profits into the school), receiving parental consent, and then is the testing. I went into the classroom on a testing day. Those who have permission, get their finger pricked and get 5 drops of blood onto the testing kit and then take a roughly twenty minute survey on a touch screen phone. The survey is so cool! The questions change based on your previous answers.  It Is so neat that they are using touch screen phones and a free google application which I believe is called Open Data. It was awesome to see this in actual practice. We read about and learn about monitoring and evaluation, and policies, but to be on the ground and see what worked and didn’t work was an experience I will never forget.  I actually just got word that I might be able to help this woman somewhat while I am here J and be allowed to work down in Khayelitsha one day per week.  

                Anyways to continue with the details of this RCT: half of the schools/participants will be chosen to go through the 11 week Grassroot Soccer Generation SKILLZ curriculum in 2012. Then this same group will go through one or two refresher courses in the three years of the project. Of this half, half of them will get encouragement SMS text messages throughout the year.  Then at the end of year 3, they will take the test again, both the phone one and the blood test.  At that time they will test all the blood samples from year 3 for HIV and for herpes (I think). If a participant is positive, they will go back and test year 1.  They hope to show a significant difference in education level and actual effectiveness (less HIV/AIDS) in the kids that had GRS.

                The incentive for the students to participate is the potential to be a part of the Grassroots program, as well as free snacks the day of the testing. Originally, they thought the incentive could be free airtime (for their cell phone – the number of people with cell phones in the township is rather high, or they will have a Sim card that they put into their friends’ phone every once in a while), but they found that these students might use the free airtime to participate in risky behavior, especially with the girls.

                What an experience to be able to go into a South African high school in a township, one that I am sure that my sister is way jealous of! So I posted a picture of the high school from the internet. I went into Uxolo High School. It was just two buildings with a courtyard in between. Maybe three to four stories each building. No inside hallways, all exterior, like a cheap motel. All the kids have to wear uniforms. Evidently it is the Department of Education policy to try to tackle social problems like HIV/AIDS, STIs, poverty, etc. through a 30 to 60 minute class called “Life Orientation.” Schools can then choose how long they want the class to be and how many times per week. The school can also then choose if they will allow NGOs and other guest speakers to come in during that “Life Orientation” time. Evidently, this leads to very mixed results as one would presume. You have some teachers that truly care and make use of that time and you have other teachers that basically get paid to babysit the students.  

                The classroom that I went in seemed to have a teacher that might not care too much. He had a nice stick that looked like he might use to threaten or scare the kids. But I do not want to judge him based on 5 minutes seeing him in the class; however, based on his absence during the testing it seemed like he was very happy to leave the kids and the classroom. The class was about half the size of a US classroom and had about 45 to 50 students in it. The old desks took up the whole classroom with barely any walking space left. The students were very loud and very boisterous, and it didn’t help when the teacher left. The students are taught the class in English, but I didn’t hear a word of English spoken while they were waiting to take the survey. In the Western Cape and Khayelitsha, the predominant language and ethnicity is Xhosa (pronounced Co-sa). The turnout for this class was very low, with only about 12 students remembering to bring their forms. Some said that their parents said no, but mainly most of them forgot.  

                Moving on, after the testing we headed back to the Football for Hope centre.  All the kids got out of school and congregated at the “safe place” of the Football for Hope centre.  The GRS interns said that the other NGOs like “Love First” and another HIV/AIDS one have buildings but they remain rather empty. They can’t attract kids, or get buy-in. But the soccer field continued to become more packed as more kids got out of school and came to play on it. Anyone is allowed on the field as long as a session is not going on, pretty cool!

                I got to meet some cute kids… 2 little girls playing on a nearby jungle gym. Then we talked with and played a little with about 3-5 little boys. They were too young to be allowed to play with the big boys on the soccer field.  I showed show of my soccer little to the little boys… I think they were impressed.

This one little boy, Seeba hangs out at the center every day and is Rebecca and Andrew’s little helper buddy.  See-ba even goes on sleep overs at the intern house sometimes. Seeba’s friend Alex also hangs around every day. Alex’s dad is a rugby player but he must not get paid enough to move out of Khayelitsha. It was the understanding of the interns that once you get enough money, you move out of the township and do not look back. You get yourself and your family out of the situation and offer them better opportunities. 

Anyways, I asked Seeba how many juggles he thought that I could get… he said 50.. I said seriously?... he said 25… I told him my highest is around 800-900 and he didn’t believe me. Of well, I am going back to Khayelitsha tomorrow and I will have to prove him wrong hehe.

                Next we went to new GRS run program of “Champions League,” which is for 18-25 year olds who are unemployed and at risk of substance abuse. UCLA and a South African university received a grant and approached GRS about doing a study of incentives and soccer with men at-risk of alcohol and drug abuse.

                The program is 8 teams of 6v6. They have two practices during the week… one is soccer practice, one is alcohol curriculum, and then they have development course (CV, interview help, etc) on Fridays… finally they do a tournament or have games on the weekend. So each team has a Champions league team name. Evidently the guys got super into this.  In order to get the participants, they went door to door. Then they had to consent and come take a survey which then ranked their risk of substance abuse on a scale from one to three.  They then split up teams in order to get equal 1, 2, and 3’s on the teams. If they show up to practice on time then they get 5 Rand in airtime. They also get incentives if they test negative for alcohol, cocaine, weed, and other local drugs. They test at practice every week or every other week I believe.

                It was interesting to hear Andrew (a GRS intern) talk about how these guys play.  They have fantastic foot skills in small tight spaces but they lack the vision once it is 11v11. Basically 11v11 turns into a nutmeg competition.   

                All in all I had an amazing experience in Khayelitsha and I am very excited to go back tomorrow and hopefully about once per week throughout the summer. Throughout the day I felt totally safe in Khayelitsha. As we drove home on the N2 highway, it was cool to see kids and adults playing soccer in the grass between the township wall and the highway. Soccer truly is the world’s sport!

                Pictures from Khayelitsha to come!