Philippines diary: Learning the hard way

Children wave at a morning assembly on their first day back after the floods
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

If my first week in the Philippines could be described as relatively uneventful, the same certainly can’t be said for the second. I saw a school reopening for the first time since the floods, I met street children in Chinatown, watched the government being held to account over child rights and ended the week barricaded in my flat in the path of an oncoming typhoon.

My week started at 5:30am on Monday. I was up, not necessarily bright but certainly early, to go to Pinagbuhatan Elementary School, which was opening for the first time following the devastation caused by Typhoon Ketsana. For children who had been through the stress of losing their homes and in some cases loved ones to the floodwaters, it was to be a welcome return to normality.

It took us a while to find the school and by the time we arrived the assembly had already started. Hundreds of children in clean and pressed uniforms thronged a large courtyard in the middle of the school. I was summoned to the stage and made my way through a press of small bodies to the front.

Again, perhaps by virtue of my status as a celebrity foreigner, I was asked to address the school. Feeling a bit of a fraud, I complied. I haven’t had to speak in front of so many children since I ran as the Labour candidate in my own school’s mock election back in 1990. This time, my speech was far shorter and much less political.

Towards the end of the assembly, the children were presented with school kits in UNICEF backpacks. Finally, my colleague Arnaldo from the education department, universally known as Ar-ar, led a puppet show for the children, with four puppets in the style of Sesame Street. It was great fun but there was also a serious point to the exercise, as Ar-ar explained to me later.

“Children love puppetry and are very receptive to it,” he said. “So this morning, before the assembly, we talked to the children about their experiences and how they felt. We put all of that into the story of today’s puppet show. We also talked to the teachers about using the puppets later on to tackle health, nutrition, water and sanitation issues.”

After the assembly, I interviewed the Principal, Iluminado Leno. “All our classrooms were damaged in the flood, along with the canteen and the clinic, and all the equipment was swept away,” she said. “We sent teachers to the evacuation centres to continue lessons wherever possible. We are happy and surprised by how many pupils came back today and hope even more will come tomorrow. This will help them forget their distressing experiences.”

Finally, I tried to talk to some of the children but they were too shy to say much. I think I need to work on my interviewing technique. Ar-ar recommends using puppets! One thing that strikes me is the contrast between the UK, where a lot of children take school for granted and can’t wait for a chance to skip it. Here the opposite is true. Filipino children really value education and will overcome great barriers to get it, as I was to see even more starkly the next day.

“After a disaster, children are sent to evacuation centres and often they’re just sitting there all day with nothing to do,” Ar-ar said. “When we asked them how they feel, the children would say ‘I miss my teachers; I miss my classmates; I lost my school bag; I want to go back to school.’.”

Under pressure

Butch with Mary. He hopes to get her back into school soon
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

On Tuesday, I hooked up with Jes from UNICEF’s child protection department and went to see an amazing project that’s bringing education and life skills counselling to Manila’s most vulnerable people: the street children.

The project is run by a local charity called Childhope Asia Philippines, which operates out of an old Spanish colonial villa. The Spanish ran the Philippines for over 300 years, from 1571 to 1898, and are not remembered fondly for it. Much of their architectural legacy was destroyed in the battle for Manila between the US and Japan at the end of the Second World War but a few building like this survived.

At the villa, we met one of the charity’s outreach workers. Butch, 47, is a real character. In combat shorts and t-shirt, he still retains some of the style and attitude of the street child he used to be. Butch never knew his parents and ran away from home after his grandmother died. He ended up on the streets, where he led a gang, sold drugs and acted as a pimp for other boys. By the time he was 17, he realised his life had to change.

“We were a group of eight kids and I was the leader,” Butch said. “I was street smart and didn’t trust anyone. But these people, the social workers, they were persistent and really got to know the group. So I said ‘I’m going to try this. Why not? I have nothing to lose’.”

While other street workers educate the children with regular classes, where they learn things like basic maths and literacy, Butch concentrates on counselling, helping individual children work through their problems.

“There is a lot of abuse on the streets,” he says. “In my area there are a lot of market vendors who think that street children are the dregs of society. So they don’t think these kids have rights. Every day, the kids get sick from pneumonia, skin disease and tuberculosis. They are hungry and have to look for food all the time. They don’t have good friends and there are lots of vices around them.”

Butch is strongly motivated to do this kind of work. “It’s more than payback,” he says. “I feel an obligation and responsibility to take care of other people. Certain kids have the inner strength but they need some support from the outside.”

As the light started to fade, we headed into town to the square outside Binondo Church in Chinatown where the street children congregate. We got out of the car into a busy square, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Manila street life. We’re immediately surrounded by a crowd of excited children who clearly know Butch. They make us press our hands to their foreheads, which is a form of blessing.

Despite their blackened bare feet and ragged clothes, the children seem happy and outgoing. There’s none of the shyness I saw at the school. Several of the kids want me to take their photos and strike up tough street poses. This attitude is belied, however, by their child-like enthusiasm to see the pictures.

Street children play an educational game at a street learning session
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

One of the other street educators starts a class right there in the street and the children’s attention is diverted. If anything, they’re even keener to learn than the children at Pinagbuhatan Elementary School. As the class starts, other children race across the square to join in.

Afterwards, I talk to Mary (not her real name), 12, who lives and works with her family on the streets of Manila. She helps her mother sell cigarettes outside Starbucks in Binondo (Chinatown) and looks after her younger brothers and sisters. She has been out of school for two years and is under pressure from her peers to sniff solvents. “I don’t want to sleep on the streets anymore,” she says.

After counselling from Butch, Mary is attending the alternative learning sessions, where she is showing academic promise. She’s now decided that she wants to go back to school. “I like learning maths, Filipino and how to take care of my body,” she says. “I want to be a nurse and help people who are sick, like the people who got ill after the last typhoon.”

We’re just round the corner from Starbucks, so afterwards we go and meet Mary’s family. I tell her mother how smart Mary is and show her some of the photos. Later on, I get prints made which I’ll give to Butch to pass on to the children.

This is without a doubt the highlight of my visit so far. I feel overwhelmed by a jumble of conflicting emotions. I’m upset for the children and what they have to go through but inspired by their resilience and by the work that Butch and the other street educators do. Also in the mix is the slightly selfish thrill of getting a really strong story. This is what I love most about my job: finding and telling the stories of these kids, hopefully to inspire others to take action, whether by donating, campaigning or fundraising for UNICEF.

Could do better

On Wednesday morning, I went to a forum to see the Philippines Government and a coalition of non-governmental organisations present their reports on how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been implemented in the Philippines. The consensus seems to be that although the Government has made progress on passing laws to protect children’s rights, it has failed to implement many of them effectively. One particularly shocking practice that is still going on is executing children in some parts of the country for being ‘communists’.

The forum was held in Club Filipino, another colonial era building. Our event is somewhat overshadowed, and at one point literally drowned out, by an event held by Senator Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero, who plans to run for President next May. He gave a statement to journalists that he was leaving the Nationalist People’s Coalition. In the Philippines, politicians are only loosely aligned to political parties and it’s not unusual for them to jump ship ahead of an election.

On a personal level, my major triumph this week is mastering the jeepneys. I needed a bit of local help to start with but I now know the main routes around Makati and roughly where to get on and off (it’s an inexact science). I also discovered that if you sit towards the front, you’re expected to pass money back and forth between the driver and other passengers. In the Philippines, everyone’s a bus conductor.

I’m already over my word length so I will tell you about the typhoon next week. Suffice to say that I went home on Friday night with the tops of the tower blocks disappearing beneath a shroud of rain and cloud, the wind starting to whip up and a distinct sense of trepidation as Typhoon Santi stormed directly towards Manila.

Philippines diary: Pearl of the Orient

Marge, me and Gina with the UNICEF Facebook page
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

I arrived in Manila on Sunday afternoon, seven hours and 15°C out of synch with the local time and climate following an overnight flight from London. I’m here to help UNICEF Philippines develop their website, expand their presence on sites like Facebook and Twitter and create new web content by visiting and reporting on UNICEF projects throughout the country.

That was the plan at least. Three weeks before I was due to leave, Typhoon Ketsana (known locally as Tropical Storm Ondoy) slammed into Manila, one of the most densely populated urban centres in the world, deluging it with 18 inches of rain in 12 hours and flooding 80 per cent of the city. Over 600 people were killed and nearly 400,000 were forced to leave their homes and seek shelter in evacuation centres. In total, over 6 million people were affected by the typhoon and subsequent flooding.

I really had no idea what to expect when arriving here. My plane flew in over waterlogged fields near the coast but Manila itself seemed clear. There was no sign of people wading waist deep through the streets that had become rivers like I’d seen on the news. However, Manila straddles a narrow strip of land between the coast and a large inland lake and I later discovered that poorer areas of the city, on the lake side, are still underwater. Without proper drainage or sanitation in these areas, the risks have now changed from drowning to disease, including outbreaks of cholera.

I’ll be seeing these areas soon but my first week was largely office-based. I’ve been working with Marge (Media and External Communications) and Gina (Online Fundraising) to start making improvements to the website. We’ve set up a YouTube channel to provide our own video for the site and a local web address, http://www.unicef.ph, which has gone down well. Marge and Gina have brought me up to speed on RedDot, UNICEF International’s content management system.

Thinking outside the box

Young people work on their presentation for the KNN workshop
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

I’ve also made a start on generating content. I’ve filmed and edited a short video about what UNICEF Philippines does and why it needs donations from the public. I’ve also visited a youth media project at Kabataan News Network (KNN), an organisation funded by UNICEF, which will be the subject of my first feature.

Kabataan means ‘youth’ in Tagalog, the main local language of the Philippines. KNN trains young people to produce news reports using video, radio, print and photography. The focus is on communicating children’s rights and this week’s workshop was aimed at producing pieces for the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which takes place on 20 November this year.

I was really impressed by what they’d done. One group had produced a stop-motion animation, illustrating the issue of children caught in conflict, using little more than a stills camera, some clay and a few toy soldiers. Another group made a beautifully shot video about the right to an education. In their film, a street child draws a school on a flattened cardboard box. She then assembles the box and crawls into it, followed by her friends. It’s really effective and the team have got a great performance from their young star.

I was asked to introduce myself and give the young people feedback on their presentations. Afterwards, I interviewed Ros, the project coordinator, and Guillermo, one of the young people in the video group.

I asked Ros about KNN’s objectives for the CRC anniversary. “We wanted to focus not just on what children’s rights are but on their impact, on what has happened to the Philippines since it signed the Convention” she explained. “Most of the young people on this project are 20 or younger. They were born around the same time as the CRC. A lot of good things have happened in that time but there are still a lot of things that we can improve. So we wanted to ask their help, to determine what more can be done.”

Guillermo, 21, has dreamed of being a reporter since he was a child, so the project was a great opportunity for him. “We were given the topic of the right to an education,” he said. “While thinking about the story, we had the idea of a child that wants to go to school but doesn’t have the resources. When I was a kid, I liked to play with a box and imagine things with it. And the video shows that when one child has created a school with the box, other kids would like to go there too.”

“Here in the Philippines, even though there are lots of students starting school, few of them finish high school,” he continues. “In our video, we show that for every 100 children who start grade one, only 30 will finish. So even though we know that every child has the right to go to school, not all of them are getting the chance to finish.”

Manila, city of contrasts

Makati skyline at sunset. There is a small slum just around the corner
© UNICEF Philippines/2009/Andy Brown

Aside from work, I’ve had a bit of time to explore Manila. It’s a city of contrasts, most notably between the rich and poor. Makati, the business district, is full of high rise offices, shopping malls and luxury apartment blocks. It comes alive at night, when the call centres open. Workers throng the streets, food is sold on every corner and brightly decorated ‘jeepneys’ speed up and down the streets, picking people up and dropping them off apparently at random.

However, there’s also extreme poverty here. Even in Makati, I spotted a small slum squeezed between an office block and a water channel, with ramshackle buildings made of corrugated iron. Outside, children played in the street and an old man sold pots and pans. In total, a third of the population of Manila lives in informal settlements like these.

Filipinos are really friendly people. I’ve had no shortage of advice for activities and excursions, and have been introduced to several local dishes, including adobo (chicken and rice wrapped in banana leaf) and pancit (Filipino-style noodles). Some of it is a bit heavy for Western tastes, but this weekend I discovered bangus (barbequed milk fish stuffed with tomato and onion) at a food market, which was delicious. I should also mention that Filipinos have voracious appetites and eat five means a day. Technically, two of these are ‘snacks’, but they can be just as hearty as a main meal.

Marge and I share an interest in music and she’s lent me a small stack of Filipino music CDs, including some great funk and soul artists, like ‘Sinosikat’ and ‘Mike’s Apartment’. Perhaps foolishly, I’ve agreed to do a sponsored 10K run for UNICEF Philippines with Gina and Love. I ran 10K for UNICEF in London in May this year with no problems, but I started training this weekend and realised that running in a humid, 30 degree heat is an altogether different exercise. What have I let myself in for?

Next week is already looking busy. I’ll be up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to visit the last school in Manila to reopen after the floods. I’ll also be seeing a street children project and might be doing a story following the journey of a UNICEF van collecting milk donations from breastfeeding women for young children in the evacuation centres.

All in all, it’s great to be here in the Philippines, seeing what UNICEF does on the ground in a developing country. Having worked on the UK fundraising effort for the floods, it’ll be great to close the circle and report on how that money’s being spent.

South Africa diary: Rock DJ

Day four, Monday 14 July

Me with the Zondi family at their home in Durban

I get up at 6am, in time to see an amazing sunrise over Durban bay. Far below, I can see a crowd of people out on the pier, waiting for the sun to make its appearance above the rapidly lightening horizon. Downstairs, we meet the local Isibindi project manager and I get a chance to go through some questions from our media team. Today, we’re visiting the Zondi family, who were the focus of a 2006 appeal film starring Robbie Williams. One of our key objectives is to report back on their progress since then.

After getting briefly lost on our way out of Durban, we arrive at the township where the Zondi family lives. We’re met by Umlum Zondi (not his real name), a smiley and chatty 16 year old. He leads us to his home – three small, yellow and green buildings perched precariously on a hillside by the coast. There’s also a banana tree, a single tap for washing, an outside latrine and two graves below the house where the children’s parents are buried. Although they’re still poor, the people round here are clearly a step up from those in Ndondo Square. Their brick homes are well constructed and they all have running water and electricity.

When Robbie first visited the Zondis in 2006, Kiki, who was 17 at the time, was looking after his younger brother Umlum, then 14 and sisters Banu, 9, and Katie, 8. The children’s father died in 2002 and the boys cared for their mother until she died in 2005, after which they had no one to look after them. Fortunately, the family came to the attention of Isibindi, who provided a child and youth care worker to help out around the house, teach the children life skills, help with homework and provide emotional support.

Two years on, we found four very happy young people. They are all healthy and going to school except Kiki, who has finished school. He’s secured a place to study economics and business at college next year. In the meantime, he’s learning to drive in order to get work and help support the family. The Zondi’s care worker, Dozoi, has helped Kiki secure a financial grant for the family. He has also recently adopted his brother and sisters, becoming their official foster parent.

A picture of the children’s father is still prominently displayed on the wall in the lounge, but it has been joined by another picture of the children with Robbie Williams. There’s lots more Robbie memorabilia around the house and he clearly made a big impression on them.

The Zondi children with their care worker Dozoi

While we’re setting up the film, I spend some time getting to know the Zondis. Umlum is a big football fan and very keen on Manchester United. Kiki wants to know where I live and if I’ve met David Beckham. I tell him that I live in London and haven’t met Beckham, but that he does work with UNICEF, so some of my colleagues have. The boys are happy to talk about their parents and they show us pictures of their mother, father and themselves when they were younger. I notice that while Umlum is very outgoing and a bit of a joker, Kiki is much more serious – perhaps a sign of the responsibility he has had to bear from an early age.

The crew have finished setting up so the family gather outside to tell us how their lives have changed. “Life was difficult before Robbie came here,” Umlum says. “We were not earning much and had to budget for everything, including school uniforms. Now things are much easier for us. Soccer Aid has given us the opportunity to go to University and do what we like with our lives.”

After the interview, the children make thank you cards for Robbie and record a message for him, including their own song and dance version of Rock DJ. They have enormous fun doing it and seem happy and carefree – a sure sign of how far they have come in the last two years.

For the final scene, the crew go off with Kiki to film a driving lesson, while the rest of us stay at the house. As usual, we’ve brought an England football with us and before long a group of teenage boys, friends of Umlum, arrive for an impromptu kick around in the backyard. I join them for a game but they’re far better than I am. Their favourite catch phrase is “quality pass”. By this point, we’ve overrun our schedule so we skip lunch and head off to meet our last family, the Sibanyonis, grabbing a few pretzels and an apple in the van on the way.

Ntombi reading with her younger brother

Ntombi Sibanyoni, 19, has been looking after her brother, sister and nephew for five years. Her mother became too ill to look after them when she was 14. By the time she was 16, both her mother and aunt had passed away. Ntombi was left on her own, responsible for her sister Zola, then 11, brother Themba, 7, and nephew Bongani, 9. She now has her own baby daughter Sithembile to look after as well. All five live together in a small, four-room house.

It’s a lot for a teenage girl to cope with and Ntombi struggled at first with so much responsibility and very little income. But things are a lot better now. Ntombi gets help from Nilisiwe, a child and youth care worker provided by Isibindi. Nilisiwe helps out around the house, looks after the younger children and provides emotional support for the whole family. This has allowed Ntombi to finish school and get a job as a Facilitator at Adam’s Mission, where she is working on a water and sanitation project. The job allows her to support her family and she is now in the process of building a larger house for them.

It’s my turn to do the interviewing and I’m a bit nervous because I don’t want to mess it up. We don’t have much time here but while the film crew is setting up, I get to know Ntombi. She’s nervous too but has done this before for another UNICEF film. I tell her that, compared to everyone else, she’s virtually a professional actress.

Ntombi is very intelligent and eloquent. Amazingly, as well as working and caring for her family, she also finds time to help those of her neighbours who have less than she does. All in all, Ntombi is a real inspiration and Isibindi have plans to train her as an advocate. They’re sending her on a female empowerment course, but I’m not sure that she needs it.

At the end of the interview, I ask Ntombi if she has a message for people in the UK who are thinking of donating to UNICEF through Soccer Aid. “It is a very good thing when you give money to UNICEF, because people are sick and dying in South Africa and they need help,” she says. “Nilisiwe has helped me so much and I wish this scheme could be extended to other families who are suffering, even those where children still have their parents but they’re not working because they are sick. We need more child care workers like Nilisiwe to come and help these families.”

Once we’ve finished the interview, I suggest that we film sequences of Ntombi helping Themba with his reading. For the final scene, Bongani and Themba sweep the yard outside the house with great enthusiasm – almost certainly more so than when they’re doing their real chores.

We say goodbye to the family and head back up the hill to the vans and the long flight home. I’m exhausted, but sad that it’s all over. I look out across the township to the sea and think about what an amazing experience this has been. It’s also been hugely productive: I’ve collected over 1,000 photos, four case studies, several interviews and an entire book full of notes. There’ll be lots of work for me to do sorting it all out when I get home.

Kiki Zondi tries his hand as a cameraman

Back to part two »

South Africa diary: Missing generation

Day three, Sunday 13 July

Unathi Nyathi with two of her many grandchildren

We’re staying at a guest house in Eliott, in the Transkei region of South Africa. It’s another early start, but after getting up at 4am yesterday, 7 O’Clock feels like a nice lie-in. It’s still well below freezing outside so in order to stay warm, I’m now wearing all my clothes in layers each day. We have a hearty breakfast at the guest house, then pile in to the vans and head back to Ndondo Square to film the second family – the Nyathis.

We arrive at the Nyathi home and get a tangible sense of South Africa’s ‘missing generation’. There are countless children running around the yard making a racket, while an old woman sits quietly outside the house, gazing into the distance. Nasi Nyathi (not her real name) is 15 and, along with her brothers and sisters, is an orphan. Her mother died four months ago, leaving five grieving children in the care of their grandmother Unathi, who was already looking after their twelve cousins. The only source of income for the entire family was Unathi’s pension.

After her mother died, Nasi initially took care of her siblings and did all their washing, cooking and cleaning. Things in the house became disorganised. Unathi didn’t want Nasi to do the housework but she’s a 65 year old woman looking after 17 children and things got too much for her.

“When my daughter was alive, she used to help around the house and supported me financially,” Unathi says. After her death it was so difficult and we sometimes lived without food. I couldn’t buy any shoes or school uniforms for the children. My own health wasn’t good so I allocated tasks and responsibilities to Nasi, the eldest child.”

Nasi Nyathi washing dishes in the yard

Luckily, help was at hand. Unathi approached Nolita, a child and youth care worker with Isibindi. For the last couple of months, Nolita has been working with Unathi to bring some structure and normality back to the family. There is now a rota, so all the children share the chores. They are back at school and Nolita helps them with homework, as well as keeping the house in order.

“After Unathi spoke to me I came to the house to do an assessment,” Nolita says. “There was a lot of grief. I found that the older boys were doing nothing, just hanging around in the street. Nasi was doing all the chores, looking after the younger children and caring for her granny when she was sick. The children were not going to school regularly and their work was not up to standard. I talked to the boys to give them some life space counselling but also to make sure they did something to help Nasi. We set up a house rota whereby every child has tasks.”

Nolita visited the children’s school and arranged for them to return to their classes. Through the Isibindi project, she provided new shoes, school uniforms and food parcels, so the children would have something to eat in the evenings. Nolita also encouraged Nasi to go to the local Isibindi safe park. For Nasi, it’s a place where she can get away from her busy family life and be herself. It’s a place where she can meet her friends, listen to music and just be 15 again.

“In the safe park there is a lot to do,” Nolita continues. “We educate the young people about sex, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, sexual and physical abuse and hygiene. Every child is supervised, whether they are playing or involved in a group discussion. Care workers can also identify vulnerable children and do an assessment of any that seem to be struggling or have a problem at home.”

“The young people love the safe park and they know the rules,” she adds. “They don’t hurt anyone or shout: they just play.”

Nolita with the Nyathi children

While the film crew are doing interviews inside the house, the rest of us wait outside and try to keep everyone quiet. This proves quite a challenge: there are over a dozen small children to manage, along with curious neighbours and a flock of very noisy geese.

At one point, I take some of the children down the road and play football and piggy back with them. It’s hot work and I get down to a t-shirt for the first time on the trip. My favourite kid is a four-year-old boy in a jumper with a picture of a demented robot on it and the slogan ‘System Overload… he’s going out of control’. There’s always one child I want to adopt on these kind of trips and this time System Overload is definitely the one. He’s also a precocious footballer and pulls off shots a boy twice his size would be proud of.

After the interviews have finished, we film sequences of Nasi doing her chores in the yard and walking with her sisters down the dusty road to the safe park.

Back at the safe park, I take the opportunity to grab Lulamile, who had previously been working as our translator, for a short interview on the camcorder in one of the cabins. Lulamile has been working for Isibindi for seven years, which he describes as “a wonderful experience”. Initially, he was a volunteer but now, thanks to funds from UNICEF, he’s in a full time, paid role. We talk about his life, career and aspirations. It turns out that he’s also a volleyball coach for some of the children and is enthusiastic about the use of sport for development. After the interview I take a few minutes to film Lulamile playing football with some of the boys in the park.

As we’re loading up the vans to leave, dozens of kids emerge from the safe park. They crowd around for a final photo shoot and I get some amazing shots of a sea of small smiling faces, turning orange in the rays of the setting sun.

Last chance for a photo

Back in the vans, we start a three hour drive to East London. The scenery is stunning so I take a few shots out the window but we’re on a very tight schedule so there’s no time to stop. From East London, we fly to Durban and check into a proper hotel, all of us looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

It’s late and we’re tired, which probably explains how Richard manages to leave his very expensive film camera under a table in reception. Steve takes it up to his room and pretends he hasn’t seen it. I’m too soft and give the game away by telling Richard – he’s going frantic and is about to make the hotel management go through the CCTV security tapes.

Despite my plans for an early night, I end up in the bar with Hilton until past midnight copying photos to DVD on his laptop. It’s only been two days in the field but I’ve already taken over 800 photos. It’s hard not to: the scenery is so stunning and the children so excited and photogenic that you can point the camera in virtually any direction and get a great shot.

We’ve got a 6am start tomorrow, which will be our last day. I hope that, like System Overload, I can still function.

Back to part one | Read part three »

South Africa diary: Safe from harm

Day one, Friday 11 July

Me (right, with scarf) and the Soccer Aid film crew

We arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa at 6:30am, bleary eyed after an overnight flight from London. We’re here to record appeal and feedback films for Soccer Aid 2008, a televised charity football match.

At Jo’burg, we meet the rest of the film crew, who are all very experienced. Steve Cole, the director, has just produced a documentary on filmmaker Werner Herzog for BBC1. His past highlights include an Omnibus special on Aardman’s animated classic Chicken Run. Richard Kruger, our camera man, has worked on similar appeal films for Comic Relief and American Idol Gives Back. Hilton Auffray, our sound man, has just finished a feature film and is about to start a global health documentary for BBC World. He has also interviewed Nelson Mandela and is hoping to go to his 90th birthday party, which is coming up soon. My job is to gather materials for the website, including photographs, interviews, case studies and this journal.

While things are looking good on the crew front, the logistical side is another matter entirely. We’d expected to spend the morning at Johannesburg airport before flying on to Umtata in the afternoon but our connecting flight is cancelled. We’ll have to spend the night in Jo’burg and catch a 6am morning flight. It’s really frustrating: we’re only in South Africa for four days and we’re spending an entire day at the airport.

It’s also rather colder than we’d expected. It’s minus two degrees in Jo’burg and gets as low as minus seven at night in the Transkei, where we’re heading next. I’m going to be taking photos and writing notes outside so I buy some gloves and scarves at the airport. Unfortunately, all we can find are South African rugby scarves and pink women’s gloves. Fashion is not going to be my strong point on this trip!

One useful thing about the delay is that I get to spend time with Jerry, from UNICEF South Africa, learning the local lingo. In Pedi, ‘lekae’ means ‘hello’ and ‘kealeboga’ means ‘thank you’, while in Zulu ‘kunjani’ means ‘hello’ and ‘ngiyabonga’ means ‘thank you’.

Day two, Saturday 12 July

Children play in the Isibindi safe park at Ndondo Square

We struggle up at 4am to catch our 6am flight to Umtata. We’re flying in the smallest plane I’ve ever been in – 30 seats in a tiny fuselage like a missile with oversized propellers.On the plus side, it does mean that we get to see sunrise from the air. It’s an amazing view as the vast African plains and mountains are gradually lit up by the rising sun. The airport we land at is equally tiny, with only one other plane covered in a layer of early morning ice.

At Umtata, we meet Heidi and Nikki from UNICEF South Africa and pile into their vans for a two-hour drive through the Transkei to our destination: the township of Ndondo Square. It’s a truly magnificent landscape, with vast red earth plains and great carved plateaus reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.

Soon after 9am, we arrive at the convent at Ndondo Square, which acts as the local headquarters for the project we’re visiting. Run by Isibindi, a local NGO set up by the National Association of Child Care Workers, which receives support from UNICEF, the project involves providing child and youth care workers to children who have lost their parents to HIV and AIDS. If it wasn’t for Isibindi, the older children would be looking after their younger siblings without any financial or emotional support. Recently, Isibindi has also built a ‘safe park’, which they’re very proud of. It’s a fenced-off, supervised area which provides a safe environment for the children to play and learn.

While we’re learning about this from the Isibindi project managers, Smangele and Lulamile, we become aware of a drumbeat outside the convent. Apparently, the local children have prepared a welcome dance for us. We ask if they can wait a few minutes while we set up the film equipment – this is too good an opportunity to miss. We then film the children dancing down the street in gold and silver headdresses and into the safe park, while locals watch from the surrounding fields and houses.

Once in the safe park, more kids crowd around in excitement to watch the filming. I notice some children watching the show from the top of a climbing frame and Yvonne, from UNICEF UK, and I climb up too. I get some great aerial shots of the playground and also of the dozens of children around us, all of whom want their photo taken.

The Butshingi family outside their home

After the safe park, we head into the township to film the Butshingi family. Nosizwe, the mother, is HIV-positive and disfigured from a fire some years ago. She used to be very ill and the children had to skip school to look after her. Now an Isibindi child and youth care worker, Claudisa, visits the family every day. She helps Nosizwe stay well by taking her medication correctly and eating well, allowing the children to go back to school. Claudisa also helps out around the home and provides emotional support for the children.

The Butshingi family are clearly very poor. They live in a small wooden shack with cracks filled with plastic bags, lacking even the basic facilities we can see in some of the other homes. Despite this, and all the other hardships they’ve faced, the children are incredibly happy and outgoing. They race cars ingeniously constructed from wires and old tin cans.

We interview the family and the care worker. Nosizwe has been incredibly brave to disclose her HIV status, given the stigma that still surrounds HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and braver still to let us into her home and film all of this.It’s quite humbling. I feel enormously privileged to be here, meeting these remarkable people. “After I was diagnosed with HIV, I decided it was not something to keep secret,” Nosizwe says. “I felt that I should inform my family and the care workers. I’m not afraid to tell people.”

After the interview, we give the kids Soccer Aid t-shirts and an England football. They hardly need any encouragement to start kicking it around, and this proves an excellent photo shoot. The girl, Thandiwe (not her real name), is the most enthusiastic footballer and we get some great shots of her jumping to save goals.

Playing football with the Butshingi kids

When the light starts to fade, we head back to our guest house in Elliot, run by an elderly Afrikaans couple. Although it was relatively warm in the sunshine in the afternoon, after dark it quickly drops to well below freezing. There’s no heating but it’s warm in the dining room thanks to a roaring log fire.

Before dinner, I interview Heidi about UNICEF South Africa’s work with children affected by HIV and AIDS. “We’ve got over two million orphans in South Africa, many of whom are living on their own and need care,” she says. “This is not just about having somebody who comes to the house to see if the children are OK. It’s about someone who has a real and consistent relationship with the children, who they can trust, who can help them get through school, who makes sure they eat well and who can help them work through their loss and grief.”

By the time we’ve finished eating I’m shattered, so I go to bed and read a bit of David Attenborough’s autobiography – a reminder that field trips can be a lot tougher than ours. Luckily, I’m saved from hyperthermia by an electric blanket, although I can’t help but think what it must be like for the people back in the township.

Read part two »