Thembelenkosini Library

In our efforts to recruit the best possible  coaches to join our Grassroot Soccer Soweto family, we exhausted pretty much every resource we had available out here. And while many of the people and organizations we went to were extremely helpful, there was one person stood out above the rest.

Khosi

Khosi, a women that Thato – one of our Community Program Coordinators knew – provided us with a vast network of qualified young adults she knew throughout Soweto. This provided us with a deep and talented applicant pool and gave us the opportunity to select the coaches who would best deliver our program in local schools.

In continuing to get to know Khosi, we learned about an organization she had founded in Seaoane, Soweto that serves as a community center for orphans and vulnerable children, Thembelenkosini Care Givers (Thembelenkosini means "Trust in God"). AJ and I were inspired by Khosi’s compassion and commitment to her community and decided that we would help the center in whatever way we could.

Before...

 

After checking out the room that the kids of TCG often studied in, AJ and I decided that it could use a bit of a makeover. Hence began the renovation of the Thembelenkosini Library.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve been blessed to win a few poetry competitions, perform at some great shows, and even make a video of a poem I’ve done. I’ve been even more fortunate to receive monetary compensation for many of these. And while this is internship certainly doesn’t cut me a lucrative paycheck – or any paycheck at all for that matter – I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really need all that much stuff anyway. So rather than use the money I’ve gained from poetry gigs to buy some stuff I didn’t really need, I figured it would be better to use it to buy the paint and materials we’d need to renovate the room.

Due to the fact that work has been extremely busy lately, we had to settle for working on the library on weekends.

Now I don’t claim for AJ or I to be any experts when it comes to the craft of painting – I actually consider myself pretty artistically inept – but I think both of our dad’s busted our butts enough growing up to drill the basics of painting into our systems (shout outs to Big Daddy Smith and Papa Grant).

Careful not to get paint on the new dreads coming in...

Pops will tell you this was all his doing...

After a few long Sundays, some spilled paint, a couple ITunes playlist blasting, some more spilled paint, some help from Tizzy and Thato, and a bunch of little kids begging to leave their own mark on the project, the Thembelekosini Library came out better than I think any of us anticipated.

Call me Lil' Van Gough...

The final touches...

There’s only one thing left to complete the project…BOOKS. And lots of them. These kids are so eager to learn and read, but unfortunately they don’t have a great deal of books to choose from at the moment. And the center is struggling for monetary resources.

They were alot better at this than I was

This is where you come in! If you have old children’s books (ages 3-17) laying around the house or know someone that does, toss them in a box and send them to:

Clinton Smith, III

6610 Marigny St.

New Orleans, LA 70122

I’ll be home for the holidays and will work out a way of getting them back over to South Africa.

Or if you’re in South Africa and are interested in donating just shoot me an email at cwardsmith@gmail.com and we’ll work something out.

Whooo!!!

AJ and I have also been busy building a website for the center: http://www.thembelacaregivers.org/

We don't claim to be any experts with web design either, but we figured it was a decent start.

Please consider donating

Please please please consider donating books to Thembelenkosini Care Givers, it would mean more to these kids than you’ll ever know.

World Aids Day HCT

Yesterday, December 1st, we held an HCT at the Nike Football Center in honor of World Aids Day. An HCT is an HIV Counseling and Testing Tournament where participants are involved in a day long soccer tournament, go through a series of GRS SKILLZ interventions, and are presented with the opportunity to be tested for HIV by qualified nurses & counselors.

As we've come to expect, there were some last minute obstacles thrown in our way (last minute adjustment and willingness to adapt are the name of the game here), but all things considered, the event went really well. Kids, coaches, and community members got tested, the weather was beautiful, house music was blasting with DJ Tabiso on the 1's and 2's, and most of all the participants had a great time.

It was a long long long day, but well worth it in the end.

If you'd like to learn more about World Aids Day and what it is all about, check out the official World Aids Day website: http://www.worldaidsday.org/
 

Interventions

Team waiting to play

Kids waiting to get tested

The winning girls team

After a long day at work, sometimes you just gotta dance

Training of Coaches

Last week was a long but rewarding 5 days as we held our Training of Coaches Seminar (TOC). After spending the previous few weeks recruiting and interviewing potential coaches throughout Soweto, we decided on a final 20 who would become the newest members of our GRS Soweto team.

Throughout the week the new coaches and staff took part in a series of activities the included team building, HIV/AIDS education, facilitation skills, how to hold a vital conversation, referrals, and learning how to effectively deliver our curriculum.

Although we certainly put in some long days, the week was especially rewarding for me since I had had the opportunity to interview all of the coaches. To see how much some of them grew and came out of their box within just the span of a week was pretty amazing to see. It was the first time I had been on the opposite side of the desk during an interview. The experience made me realize that while an interview can be helpful in determining whether or not someone is qualified for a position, you really won’t know what that person is capable of until you spend a significant amount of time with them.

While Grassroot Soccer’s primary focus is providing kids throughout Africa with the life skills they need to make safe healthy choices, the transformation undergone by many of the coaches during their tenures with GRS is no less significant.  They become more confident in themselves and their abilities, become role models in their communities, become part of a family that will always support them whether they remain with the organization or not.

We now have a total of 44 great coaches who change the lives of kids everyday, and I’m proud to be a part of that family.

Drama For Life Slam Footage

Footage from one of the pieces I did at the Drama for Life Slam back in August...

Bungee Jumping from Orlando Towers

"Clint, this is just dumb." That's what I was thing to myself the entire car ride over to the Orlando towers in Soweto.

The Orlando Towers

One of the things on many people’s bucket list is bungee jumping. And for one reason or another, that wish rarely ends up getting fulfilled. Now let me clarify, bungee jumping has never been on my bucket list. The notion of jumping off of a bridge, building, cliff, tower or anything else with nothing but an elastic cord preventing me from plummeting to the ground seemed silly. It was something I thought only my crazy white friends would do (sorry crazy white friends, you know I love you).

This one speaks for itself

But I don’t know what it was that happened – whether it’s the fact I’m in Africa, that two of my best friends wanted to do it with me, that we had thrill-seeking guest in town, or that my crazy white friends have rubbed off on me – but Saturday, I climbed to the top of the Orlando towers, strapped an elastic cord to my feet, and jumped off a building 35 stories tall.

At this point I was pretty sure I was going to die

I probably used the bathroom 5 times in 10 minutes before we jumped because I was pretty sure that I was going to pee my pants. Remember that childhood fear of heights I mentioned in a previous post? Well it was taking over at this point, but I had to follow through. I had already paid, had already watched Jeevs jump, and we had all already started practicing the bungee jump story as our new pick up line. So I stepped to the edge of the platform, kissed my cross, closed my eyes, and jumped.

Most unreal feeling ever

“Ridiculous!”

That’s the only word that can describe the feeling of free falling to the ground before the elastic cord catches you and recoils you up from imminent death. It was awesome.

That's one more check on the bucket list

"Winds of Change"

Here is the 'Mobilitate' video I've mentioned featuring my poem, Winds of Change. I wrote this piece when studying abroad in Senegal, but have found its message to be just as relevant during my time here in South Africa. I hope you enjoy:

Graduation Day!!!

This post is a few weeks late but things have been pretty hectic over here in Soweto lately and I figure its better late than never.

At the end of each 9 week long Skillz intervention, the coaches hold a graduation event for all of the kids. Coaches decorate the room, principals and teachers make speeches, a plethora of pictures are taken, and the kids make presentations full of singing, dancing, drama, and poetry. It's an awesome, festive atmosphere and gives the kids an opportunity to convey how much this program has really meant to them. I'm not going to lie, during some of the poems the kids were performing, I was feeling pretty choked up. No poetry slam I've been to has anything on this.

As much as Grassroot Soccer prides itself on having in-depth, proven quantitative data to support the fact that our programs are effective, it was really special for me to experience the more qualitative side of things, the kind of results you can't necessarily put into a Microsoft excel spreadsheet.

Here are some pictures from the event: