Impact of a project - Alpha and Prince

Storytelling bezoek van 11 november 2016 door Henri Plas

Introduction:
Alpha lives in a eight person household, his father passed away when he was young. He is second in row. Prince lives in a household of seven. He is the oldest. He lives with his aunt (sister to his mother) and uncle. Both their parents are not employed. Both families depend on subsistence farming.

Both did finish primary school but did not finish high school: Alpha finished up to form 2, and passed two subjects at “O-Level”, Ndebele and Geography. Prince finished up to Form 1, not passing any subjects. Their parents cannot pay for the school fees anymore so they were forced to stop. Their sisters or stephsisters did not go to high school either. They did not finish grade 7 and did not go to school for about four years (they are 17 now).

Both Prince and Alpha have to do tasks in the houseshold, for example cleaning the garden or working on the land. The size of the land of their houses are four acre (alpha) and three hectares (prince). In both their households nobody has a job. They work on the land and grow crops like mais, sorghum, and also have some cattle (cow and sheep ) as well as some chicken. To get some income they sometimes help other people, by getting food from them from the market place in Esigodini, then they also get some food or get some small money. Especially now, since the harvest last year wasn't good, they are doing these extra works, because they do not have enough food. For the rest there is nothing to do. They have no good reason to get out of bed every day. There are about 100 young people in Mtsede community that are in the same situation.  Sometimes they help each other with their tasks so they can do it together.

Challenges
As I ask for the challenges/dreams they mention;

• "I cannot go to school, we cannot pay school fees. We would love to go back to school."
  
• "We have nothing to do, no recreation options, we would like to play games and also love to play football."
  
• "I do not have a job, no income. Would love to do something, Im good with my hands (Alpha)."
  
• " I would like to become an office worker if I could go back to school."
  
• "If there was like a project to do, I would do it."
  They refer to a chicken project in the community, whereby their parents bought some small chicken, and the youth had to take care of them, and they could be sold when they were big. (Note: probably this was not continued because of differences about the project within the community).
  

Changes/effects of the project:
Alpha:

• "I learned from the time management of the Dutch. Now I make my own schedule every day. I write down the activities that I want to do and I want to get it done."
  
• "From the Zimbabwean participants and leaders I learned to treat everyone the same and with respect instead of looking down on people."
  
• "I do more things I didn't do before: for example now I speak English and do more. I've done things like painting and laying bricks."  (Also confirmed by Sheunesu: "He really is more confident").
  

Prince:

• "The GMG was very good: I liked it a lot! To be encouraged and to encourage each other. Talk about things that matter."
  
• "I learned from the Dutch: I wake up early now instead of getting out of bed late."
  
• "The project was awesome. We really had a lot of fun. It was such an experience. Also the visit to the Vic Falls etc."
  

On the question: what would you dream of to do if you had the opportunity to do so? Alpha and Prince answered:

• "I want to become an office worker" (Alfa and Prince as well)
  
• "We want to go back to school and finish it."
  
• "We want to do the work in the project. We really would like to do some things that make a difference!"