CAPs Friday 4/12/09

YOUTH END POVERTY

 

Thinking about the moments before I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2008, I still can’t believe that it really happened. My main aim for that session in Davos was to engage world leaders in a conversation about the work that young people are doing in their communities. I wanted them to get an understanding of the challenges we face as activists. Attending the Davos meeting meant putting all my anti-globalist views on the back burner and I had to resist the urge to call everyone a capitalist. The conversation we had on the Future Shifts panel was honest and open and we all had one thing in common – we wanted to make a difference.

 


On my return home I started University and looked at ways of continuing my community activism. I have always been involved in human rights work and looking at building skills through the arts. After meeting Nick in June of 2008 we decided to explore the idea of extending Youth End Poverty (YEP) to young people in Cape Town.

 

Since then the project has grown. We have provided training to 60 young people, opened an internet café in the townships, led anti-poverty workshops and hosted a successful international exchange visit.

 


At the moment we are working with various organisations to develop an awards system to provide funding to social entrepreneurs and we are also looking at the role of the 2010 World Cup in poverty alleviation. Our focus on using the creative arts as a tool has seen us create murals in poverty stricken communities where conflict is the order of the day. We have now used the murals as tools for conflict resolution and allowed for conversations around the causes of the conflict to take place.

 

On 3 December, 2009, we were involved in the opening of a performance called SHIFT that looks at the systematic barriers encountered in sports; this forms part of a larger conversation around racism in sport.

 

One of our main priorities is raising funds for the second exchange that is to take place next year. This exchange will see 10 South Africans travel to Scotland and engage in intercultural dialogue. They will work alongside their Scottish counterparts and share skills.

 

This project has been exciting and I am blessed to be part of it and to work with such an amazing team.


Gillion