Project Gateway

First off, I would like to pull a Marty Goetz and say I am sorry for my two-week silence without a blog! I hope you all survived. I’m most confident that you did :)

Anyway, the last two weeks have brought with them a number of transitions and trials. First off, school is over, finals have been taken, and last night I finished my last assignment for Biology class—a 12-page paper on South African conservation. To say I enjoyed writing the paper would be a lie, but when I’m put in a position of doing school-work that I do not want to do, I just try to remind myself that it is a blessing and not a curse to be receiving an incredible education and having the opportunity to increase my knowledge, skills, and have my voice heard on certain issues and topics. School is not a curse. It is a blessing. Of this I am quite sure.

After finals two weeks ago, we began preparing for our service sites. We took a three-day crash course on Community Engagement taught by a man named Francis Ngikito. He is from Kenya and worked for World Vision for over 30 years. He is a man who is in his early 60s, although you would never know it, and he is full of joy, life, and the Holy Spirit. Currently, he does independent consulting for people and was described by our executive director, Reg, as the best community developer on the continent of Africa. Needless to say, I think we were all looking forward to the class and the opportunity to learn from such a highly revered and esteemed man.

After three days of the class, endless notes, and a lot of interactive “community development-ish” type activities, I was overjoyed because for the first time in my life, I felt like I had some direction for what I might want to do with an International Business degree—I want to be like Francis (kinda, maybe, sorta). This is all in the beginning stages, but as Francis spoke, almost everything he said resonated in my Spirit. In other words, most of the things he described regarding his job as a community developer had to do with strengths and skills such as anthropology, history, communication, building relationships, creating plans, developing a vision, and working to empower people. All of these topics spark interest in me, on both a tangible and spiritual level. I left those three days feeling like I had some direction for my life, and that is something I’d been praying for regarding my time in South Africa because, “Without vision my people perish.”- Prov. 29:18

Although those three days in class had an impact on what the future might hold, the purpose of each 8AM-4PM session was to prepare us for “engaging with the community” over the next four weeks at our service site. Mine was Project Gateway. Project Gateway is a non-profit Christian organization that exists for the sake of uplifting people and their communities by providing them with job, business and life skills. It is a little campus located in a rundown part of Pietermaritzburg. On that campus there are shops run by local craft businesses, a Christian school (K-7), a fashion school, an overnight shelter, a women’s home (that is currently closed due to lack of funding), and administrative offices where they are continually trying to figure out ways to help the poorest of the poor by empowering them to break out of the cycle of poverty.

On Thursday, I headed to my site with three others—Abby (a sophomore political science major), Mark (a sophomore business admin major), and Matt (a senior physics major). We were excited, apprehensive, and a bit nervous about what the next 14 days at Project Gateway might hold (that week we were only there for two days, and for the following three weeks we spend one day in class with Francis and the next four at our site, so 14 days total on site, spread out over a period of four weeks). Anyway, it almost felt like a first day of school. We wanted to be liked, welcomed, and needed at Project Gateway.

The first thing Sally, the volunteer coordinator there, said to us when we stepped out of the van has kind of defined our past week there thus far. She exclaimed with surprise, “I thought you were coming next week!” That statement right there defined our first couple of days at Gateway. Unfortunately, they are quite understaffed at the moment and lacking a lot of funding, which, in turn, makes them have little time to get us up and running on project “this or that.” This past week was better, but there is still a lot of progress to be made regarding communication between the staff and us.

We are currently picking up on a project that last semester’s APU group left behind. It has to do with crafts (jewelry and accessories) that the people in townships make and the fact that much of what they make is beautiful and well designed, but there is no market for it within the townships because no one has the money to purchase anything. Project Gateway partners with these “crafters” (as we call them) and takes their products out of the townships and into a market (whether that be within South Africa or on an international level). They want us to design a line of products for the crafters to make that we think would sell in the U.S. and create a catalogue that can be sent to different retailers who might want to sell a “warm product,” or something that is made with a story and character, and the profit that comes in from buying that product goes directly back to the crafters in order to sustain them and help put food on their table. Anyway, it is a large endeavor, but most definitely a worthy cause with much potential.

On Friday, we were able to go and visit a family of crafters in one of the townships. That was a highlight of the week by far. Sitting in an office and creating a catalogue on InDesign becomes tedious work after three days time, and we were anxious to get out into the community and meet the people. We met four women—Nontobeko (19), Thembile (18), Gabisile (The mother of those two girls), and Mvelo (probably mid-30s). Nontobeko had just given birth a month before to the most beautiful baby girl (who was sleeping soundly in the little two-bedroom house). When we walked in there was the most beautiful display of jewelry set up, and we browsed through it all amazed at the skill level and detail of each piece created by these women. We only spent about an hour talking with them, but we decided that we would come back the next week (with nail polish and chocolate) just to hang out.

So far that has been the most frustrating part about being at Project Gateway, specifically. There are four other sites the students are going to and ours is the most “business-oriented,” which is good for me as business major, obviously, but the Community Engagement course, that is directly linked to the service sites, is to build relationships and spend time with people. Our team of four is hoping to be able to do more of that in the weeks to come, but for now we are taking it one step at time. You can pray for our team if you think of it, that we would be united and open to whatever it is God has for us at Project Gateway, whether that involves spending time with people or working on a business plan, that all of it would be done for His glory and His purposes alone. Amen.

"Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."- Hebrew 4:18