My future South African heroes :)

So… today was the BEST DAY EVER!!!!!

OK really most of the day was real routine, just class and stuff, but tutoring at Emasi today was AMAZING!!

I was supposed to be working with the older kids (7th-9th grade) the whole time, but for the first few weeks they couldn’t come because of some other time commitment. I was getting kind of frustrated because the little kids are really cute, but I wanted to focus on life skills and goal setting and role models and things that will get them thinking positively about the future, and that really doesn’t work with the younger ones. But today, PRAISE GOD, the older kids finally came! They are a group of six boys between 14 and 16 years old and I was kind of just bracing myself because adolescent boys are not always the easiest but Oh. My. Goodness. They were AMAZING!

So we started out with this theme of “Heroes” that I really wanted to do from the very beginning. To me, it’s so important for them to see positive images of people who look like them, who have impacted our world and made a difference in the lives of others. So every Tuesday and Thursday we’re going to introduce a “Hero” and talk about their accomplishments, and it’s my hope that this will inspire our kids to reach for their own dreams, too. So today, since it was the first day, we decided to start with the basics and do Nelson Mandela. I had written a little biography of him in language that they could understand, which we read through “popcorn”-style, each student doing a few sentences. Their English skills are GREAT though – that made me so happy! Cuz I only know the BASIC basic stuff in Xhosa. So we read through it and we had a few reflection questions but we started out just asking them, “So what do you think makes Nelson Mandela a hero?” And the first kid raises his hand and says, “Because he taught people how to forgive.” It was just SO profound, me and the other tutor, Millie, just sat there like WOW. So then we asked a couple other questions, including, “What issues would you focus on if you were the President of South Africa?” And you should have heard these kids.
“I would stop crime and drug dealers.”
“I would fight for people’s rights.”
“I would stop rape.”
“I would fix education.”
“I would help kids get off the streets and into good homes like Emasi.”
It was so powerful to hear how sincere they were; you could tell they really cared deeply about these issues from the way they were speaking. It just gave me so much faith and hope in their future, because I could see that they had thought critically about the community they live in and what needs to be changed. Now we just need to help them see that they have the power to do something about it.

After that exercise, we talked to them about different career paths, and they stayed SO engaged even though I’m sure some of it was kind of tedious for them (talking about different classes you can take to prepare for certain careers, etc.) They were just so polite and respectful and seemed genuinely interested, which made me feel SO good. Long-term, we’re going to work with them on goal-setting and working step by step to achieve those goals. I just really want to see their minds open to the possibility of success. I want to show them that the sky’s the limit, and that everyone they look up to who has achieved something great started out just like they did – as a kid with a dream. I came home from Emasi feeling SO joyous in my heart because I know good things are going to come out of this!