Bringing it back to the Grassroots

On reflection, the JDD/CMP course has been the best of all my courses at Rhodes in these past three years. Naturally, being a student, this only occurs happen on reflection. Time constraints have been the only major issue and I’m definitely not ready to stop and move on from the community we have worked in such close proximity to.

One of my main concerns about the course was the sustainability. In order to keep the ties with our subjects, a number of plans have been made. One of the first major ways we are bringing our project back to the community is that, as a WEPD group, we are helping the manager of the crèche (Yolande Delport) by supplying her with posters, bookmarks, post-cards and DVDs of the sound slides that she could perhaps hand out to interested sponsors. She will use all of this to advertise the crèche at the Flower Fest Show this weekend 23rd-24th October in Grahamstown. Apart from this, A4 laminated photographs of the children and crèche will also be given to her to display. The idea is that after she has used them at the show, they can be stuck up in the crèche so that the children, who have worked so well and enthusiastically with us, will be able to see photographs of themselves every day.

A public screening, particularly to the parents of the crèche children as well as to other community members, will be organised most likely as soon as we can liaise with Pierre van Vuuren who runs the municipal office, it will most likely be held in the central community hall of Riebeeck East. Along with this we will show the TV productions as well. For the sound slides, it is important that we show them to the community as they need to see the importance of primary education and intellectual stimulation in their children during the development phase.

By helping with such things, we will hopefully create a sustained interest in our project. By putting the crèche in connection with the people it needs, we would’ve built a bridge that will never collapse. We know we have the dedication of individuals like Babalwa Booi and Yolande Delport that will not let the crèche fail, and hopefully we will not fail them either.

-Desiree Schirlinger