This was our last day of the tour – actually just a half-day (as we started heading home by noon) – but there was still one more stop!
After our last two days exploring South Africa’s natural beauty at the Cape of Good Hope and the Solms-Delta winery, we turned our attention back to the world of education.
We made our way about 10 minutes north to an area called the Gardens. Here, in a small nondescript building, we found the Shikaya organization. Shikaya is a non-profit organization that creates programs to support teachers and students. Their lofty goal is to help “create a South Africa in which young people in schools are inspired and supported to become responsible citizens and future in our democracy, valuing diversity, human rights and peace.”
We were introduced to Dylan Wray, Shikaya’s executive director, and Lauren Daniels, their office manager. We spent the morning at Shikaya’s Cape Town office, where Dylan was eager to explain about their current projects and initiatives.
Shikaya’s core project is Facing the Past, an initiative formed through collaboration with Boston’s Facing History and Ourselves organization. Using Facing History’s model of examining historical events in the context of individual and group choices, students come to understand how decisions were made while under Apartheid. The aim of the project is get students to see how the right choices in the future will lead to a better South Africa. Going strong for eight years, the Facing the Past program has trained hundreds of teachers, who have in turn reached tens of thousands of students. As a teacher who has been a part of the Facing History methodology for six years, I can attest that it is a powerful model. The Choices in Little Rock unit that I use is one that really resonates with my eighth grade students each and every year.
Dylan was a strong advocate for Shikaya’s goal of creating well-informed young people and, hence, responsible citizens. He told us that this can only be done when South Africans have “deep, safe discussions about our past with people who don’t look like us.” This was an approach used by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) in the 1990s – and led Shikaya to create a two-day event called Teaching the TRC, to help educators understand the complexities and emotions of the TRC – and hopefully pass those lessons along to their students. There is an excellent write-up of this event here. http://shikaya.org/uncategorized/teaching-the-trc/ It was so interesting to hear these sentiments from Dylan, as they seemed to be an echo of what John Gilmour of the LEAP program told us just three days before about creating an ‘informed South African citizenry’.
Dylan told us that Shikaya is making strides to do more than educate teachers, and in turn students, about a better South Africa. Through a program called SA2030, teams of high-school students created research proposal on solutions to some of South Africa’s toughest problems. Utilizing team-building, oral and written communication skills as well as a formal presentation component, this program gets South Africa’s youth directly involved in addressing real national issues. The top six groups presented their ideas to a panel of distinguished South Africans, including (among others) Denis Goldberg, who was one of the eight ANC members sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964. Video clips of the top SA2030 presentations can be found here.
(Just a quick side-story on Denis Goldberg from Dylan: Denis, who is white, was asked to speak to a group of township youth on his work with the ANC in the days of Apartheid. The students, who had little background on Denis’ role with the ANC, thought Denis was against the blacks and asked him why he wanted to put Mandela in jail!)
In addition to SA2030, Shikaya also responded to the xenophobic attacks that started in a township outside of Cape Town in 2007 and escalated across the nation the following year. Through their Up2Us program, Shikaya developed a video called Where Do I Stand. It follows a teacher in the Cape Town township who tries to educate his students about foreigners in South Africa and how the students, in turn, attempt to educate the community. Dylan shared this wonderful 8-minute clip from the video:
Land of Hope from Luke Younge on Vimeo.
This video and extensive teacher’s guide is available through Shikaya in the hopes that youth all over the world can learn about the roots of prejudice and bigotry, and come to understand ways to stand up for the rights of everyone.
Among the many Shikaya initiatives, we also learned about the Letters to Mandela project. This project had its roots from a 2009 letter to Nelson Mandela from a white Afrikaaner named Arno Reuvers. He wrote to say that seeing the movie Invictus finally helped him understand how Mandela was trying to bring the nation together. From this, Shikaya has created a site that asks everyone to consider writing a letter to Nelson Mandela, sharing what his legacy means to them. Letters are entered in the Letters to Mandela site and saved for others to read and help gain inspiration. To date, over three hundred letters have been entered and are available to read.
In all, we had a little over three hours at Shikaya, but I felt we had just a small sampling of the many projects and initiatives underway at Shikaya. They seemed to be driven to engage South Africa’s youth and educators in order to make a better South Africa. Everything about this organization seemed to be thoughtful and designed with a purpose. Even the name Shikaya was chosen with a specific intent. As Dylan explained, it is a word that refers to a specific type of thorn tree. On this tree, thorns come in pairs, with one thorn curved, facing backwards and the other sticking out straight. (I managed to find a nice picture of it):
After our last two days exploring South Africa’s natural beauty at the Cape of Good Hope and the Solms-Delta winery, we turned our attention back to the world of education.
We made our way about 10 minutes north to an area called the Gardens. Here, in a small nondescript building, we found the Shikaya organization. Shikaya is a non-profit organization that creates programs to support teachers and students. Their lofty goal is to help “create a South Africa in which young people in schools are inspired and supported to become responsible citizens and future in our democracy, valuing diversity, human rights and peace.”
We were introduced to Dylan Wray, Shikaya’s executive director, and Lauren Daniels, their office manager. We spent the morning at Shikaya’s Cape Town office, where Dylan was eager to explain about their current projects and initiatives.
Shikaya’s core project is Facing the Past, an initiative formed through collaboration with Boston’s Facing History and Ourselves organization. Using Facing History’s model of examining historical events in the context of individual and group choices, students come to understand how decisions were made while under Apartheid. The aim of the project is get students to see how the right choices in the future will lead to a better South Africa. Going strong for eight years, the Facing the Past program has trained hundreds of teachers, who have in turn reached tens of thousands of students. As a teacher who has been a part of the Facing History methodology for six years, I can attest that it is a powerful model. The Choices in Little Rock unit that I use is one that really resonates with my eighth grade students each and every year.
Dylan was a strong advocate for Shikaya’s goal of creating well-informed young people and, hence, responsible citizens. He told us that this can only be done when South Africans have “deep, safe discussions about our past with people who don’t look like us.” This was an approach used by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) in the 1990s – and led Shikaya to create a two-day event called Teaching the TRC, to help educators understand the complexities and emotions of the TRC – and hopefully pass those lessons along to their students. There is an excellent write-up of this event here. http://shikaya.org/uncategorized/teaching-the-trc/ It was so interesting to hear these sentiments from Dylan, as they seemed to be an echo of what John Gilmour of the LEAP program told us just three days before about creating an ‘informed South African citizenry’.
Dylan told us that Shikaya is making strides to do more than educate teachers, and in turn students, about a better South Africa. Through a program called SA2030, teams of high-school students created research proposal on solutions to some of South Africa’s toughest problems. Utilizing team-building, oral and written communication skills as well as a formal presentation component, this program gets South Africa’s youth directly involved in addressing real national issues. The top six groups presented their ideas to a panel of distinguished South Africans, including (among others) Denis Goldberg, who was one of the eight ANC members sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964. Video clips of the top SA2030 presentations can be found here.
(Just a quick side-story on Denis Goldberg from Dylan: Denis, who is white, was asked to speak to a group of township youth on his work with the ANC in the days of Apartheid. The students, who had little background on Denis’ role with the ANC, thought Denis was against the blacks and asked him why he wanted to put Mandela in jail!)
In addition to SA2030, Shikaya also responded to the xenophobic attacks that started in a township outside of Cape Town in 2007 and escalated across the nation the following year. Through their Up2Us program, Shikaya developed a video called Where Do I Stand. It follows a teacher in the Cape Town township who tries to educate his students about foreigners in South Africa and how the students, in turn, attempt to educate the community. Dylan shared this wonderful 8-minute clip from the video:
Land of Hope from Luke Younge on Vimeo.
This video and extensive teacher’s guide is available through Shikaya in the hopes that youth all over the world can learn about the roots of prejudice and bigotry, and come to understand ways to stand up for the rights of everyone.
Among the many Shikaya initiatives, we also learned about the Letters to Mandela project. This project had its roots from a 2009 letter to Nelson Mandela from a white Afrikaaner named Arno Reuvers. He wrote to say that seeing the movie Invictus finally helped him understand how Mandela was trying to bring the nation together. From this, Shikaya has created a site that asks everyone to consider writing a letter to Nelson Mandela, sharing what his legacy means to them. Letters are entered in the Letters to Mandela site and saved for others to read and help gain inspiration. To date, over three hundred letters have been entered and are available to read.
In all, we had a little over three hours at Shikaya, but I felt we had just a small sampling of the many projects and initiatives underway at Shikaya. They seemed to be driven to engage South Africa’s youth and educators in order to make a better South Africa. Everything about this organization seemed to be thoughtful and designed with a purpose. Even the name Shikaya was chosen with a specific intent. As Dylan explained, it is a word that refers to a specific type of thorn tree. On this tree, thorns come in pairs, with one thorn curved, facing backwards and the other sticking out straight. (I managed to find a nice picture of it):
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| Courtesy of saphotographs.blogspot.com |
The native interpretation is: the curved thorn represents your past, which you are often looking back on. The straight thorn represents your future, once you have come to grips with your past. How fitting for Shikaya and it’s mission!
When it came time to finally be on our way, Dylan presented each of us with a copy of the Where Do I Stand video as well a copy of Denis Goldberg’s memoir, The Mission: A Life For Freedom In South Africa. Mixed among these items were also flyers giving us more information about Shikaya. It was in one of these flyers that I found a quote from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. When I read it, I found it to perfectly sum up Shikaya’s entire goal and mission in one short sentiment:
When it came time to finally be on our way, Dylan presented each of us with a copy of the Where Do I Stand video as well a copy of Denis Goldberg’s memoir, The Mission: A Life For Freedom In South Africa. Mixed among these items were also flyers giving us more information about Shikaya. It was in one of these flyers that I found a quote from South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. When I read it, I found it to perfectly sum up Shikaya’s entire goal and mission in one short sentiment:
“We don’t just want you to be smart. You could be a very smart crook. We want you to be smart and good.”
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