Well, I'm ticking off another first down here in South Africa... the first GoFundMe page I've started. Gotta say, the process was far simpler than I anticipated, which was a god send for a tech newbie like me.
https://www.gofundme.com/help-us-bring-supplies-to-slangspruit-primary?sharetype=teams&member=2378446&rcid=r01-156023453744-76cb5767b72d4ecb&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w
Ariana and I began our week by organizing our supplies for our first week of camp, which starts next Monday. Unfortunately, that 'organizing' quickly morphed into panicking and feeling very helpless and horrified. We had known coming down here that part of our QES scholarship money would be put towards arranging supplies and snacks for the 2 weeks of camp we were running. For us, it was about providing the best camp experience for these kids - together we have nearly 15 years of camp leadership practice, and were so excited to be able to plan out days that would give these kids a bit of an escape from the not-always-so-super-awesome conditions they live in. What we didn't factor in while putting together all our camp crafts, games, and snacks was that the school itself would be able to supplement us with very little in the way supplies, simply because they didn't have any of them in the first place.
Okay, so we were gonna buy them ourselves! It didn't seem like too much to ask to be able to bring in a couple of children's books about cultures around the globe, or be able to have a day dedicated to bead animals and friendship bracelets. But with the crazy high cost of shipping (looking at you, Amazon) and a lack of supply stores (never thought I'd be consciously missing Michaels) we were at a loss for what to do; we didn't want our super epic summer camp to descend into monotonous days of colouring sheets broken up by half-hearted soccer games with ripped and deflating soccer balls.
Not for the first time, the stark contrast between the world I grew up in and the world I was now living was thrown in my face; back home, it seemed to me that if I simply wished for a supply of some kind it would appear in my store cupboard. Endless packages of construction paper and rolls of mural paper - and felt pens! We would never have run out of felt pens! I probably couldn't count on both hands the amount of extra, untouched boxes of felt pens that were constantly stashed away at most places I worked back home. Here at Slangspruit, despite 2 days of her best searching efforts, all Ariana has been able to piece together is a few tattered soccer balls and a couple of broken hula hoops. Craft supplies? Not on your life. The library here at the school - a beautiful place, set inside a shipping container on the grounds - doesn't hold even a quarter of the books I've seen at some elementary schools back in Canada... and it's technically the public library for the whole township, a place with a population of over 17,000.
I know it's one of the cheesiest phrases out there, but it just doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem right that these kids, through no fault of their own, will never get to do science experiments in class because the funding doesn't account for beakers or litmus paper. It doesn't seem right that they will never get to make little footprints down a length of mural paper - the easiest, most entertaining craft for a kid - simply because paint is too expensive. Things like that (things I fully took for granted as a little gremlin of a 12 year old) are, in my mind, classic parts of being a kid at school, meant to break up the day into more manageable bits and give some semblance of real world application for things learned in the classroom. As our amazing supervisor said to us, we should all be curious about the accident of our own birth; nothing has made me question my own position more than being here, watching these kids strive to learn with goats popping their heads in and 40+ kids to each classroom.
So, if you've read this far, thank you. And I'm sorry you had to read what essentially amounted to me falling down an introspective rabbit hole, but I hope in some way this post has made you consider your own birth. Your own position. The life you live that may not have anything to do with you, but rather a stroke of luck and a 'first world' passport.
If it is at all possible for you to donate anything at this time, or would just be able to share our campaign, please consider our GoFundMe page, and know that any and all funds we collect will be going into providing these kids with games and books and supplies that they may never have had but have always deserved. And I promise to continue to update this space with all the photos/videos I can of the amazing times we have with whatever we can get for them - which will hopefully last past the weeks of camp into the rest of the school year, and maybe even for future years to enjoy as well.
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