Vula Project Report

Introduction
FAST is running a five-year development project for young people in Khayelitsha, South Africa. The project is being run in partnership with the local organisation ASSET (Association for Educational Transformation).

Background
The project has been set up for 30 participants, all from ASSET’s bursary programme. The participants are all in their first year of tertiary education, and all live in Khayelitsha.

Living in Khayelitsha is fraught with difficulties. The unemployment rate is estimated to be close to 80%. Consequently there is extreme poverty. Families live in overcrowded shacks alongside endemic crime and violence.

There are few positive role models for young people. Local gangsters, with their relatively affluent lifestyles, are frequently the most it would seem possible to aspire to in the community. However many young people do believe that education can be a route out of the vicious poverty trap.

Sadly, the academic obstacles facing young people in Khayelitsha are formidable. Schools are severely under-resourced and overcrowded. Teachers are often poorly trained and demotivated by the stresses of the community’s difficulties themselves. There is generally no school library and students have no access to computers.

Aims
The FAST project aims to educate participants to take leadership roles in their community, based on democratic process. The project provides positive role models for the participants. The FAST process is designed to raise self-esteem and build confidence. Through FAST, people are supported to make the best use of their resources to work together effectively towards social transformation.

Using FAST principles, the project is designed to ensure that the participants themselves identify issues they want to work to transform. The effectiveness of the project will be evaluated through participant feedback. Open discussion, interview processes and follow-up questionnaires will all be used.

FAST aims to establish a programme to train facilitators. This includes participants who are interested in becoming trainers for their own professional development. Facilitators will be able to take an active role in shaping the project and empowering young people to become role models within their own community.

Experience Of The Project
The project so far has included:

§ A pre-project task set for all participants
§ A week-end residential workshop
§ Follow-up and feedback from the participants

The Pre-Project Task
· enquiring into existing NGO activity in the community
· interviewing three young people about their priorities for their community
· interviewing three elders who are current community leaders
· planning meals, shopping lists and transportation for the workshop week-end.

The Workshop
The weekend workshop took place from 12 – 14 March 2004. It was set in a caravan park in the leafy area of Stellenbosch. The setting provided an untroubled, safe space for participants, away from dangers and distractions.

The workshop opened on the Friday evening. Sara Boas facilitated an introductory session of movement and rhythm which established group cohesion. Over the week-end learning took place through improvised movement and discussion. Students had opportunities for both individual reflection and working in small groups. They also experienced facilitated dialogue in the large group. Guest speaker George Savage reminded the group that nothing is impossible if one truly puts one’s mind to things. Both he and FAST founder and facilitator Sara Boas were seen by the participants as positive and inspiring role models.

The workshop had a double function: as a standalone event providing leadership skills, and as a consultation process. All the time, participants were gathering information about what they already bring and what they need by way of support, for education and facilitation as actual and potential leaders in their community.

Follow-Up And Feedback
By the end of the workshop the group had proposed an overall action plan to move forward through local projects and further facilitation and training.

Towards the end of the workshop, when the participants had agreed that they would like to have an ongoing programme, they talked about naming it. Various names were suggested, some in English, some in Xhosa. Having had very little exposure to training in teamwork skills and facilitation skills, the group needs to develop together the process they will use, with professional support, to find consensus on a name for the project.

This is a very good example of FAST engaging in and providing education for democracy. All the participants were very interested in how they can contribute to a truly democratic society in South Africa. The project was named Vula by the participants, this is a Xhosa word meaning “open”.

Read Case Studies from Workshop Participants

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