South Africa and Germany

Day of Africa and Vernissage

Vernissage & Africa Party

Friday 20th June, 2014
18:00 – 22:00 hrs
Rainer-Endisch Hall in Herzogsägmühle/Bavaria

Free entrance

For two weeks our guests from South Africa and their tutors from the Welfen Grammar School in Schongau worked in collaboration to create a course that will sharpen your senses, which is also accessible for people with disabilities. The dedication ceremony will be on 20th June, 2014. The participants of both countries will prepare  an African-German buffet for this occation. Next to percussion- and dance-performances our visitors can join an intercultural party, featuring DJ Karl-Heinz Rumgedisse.

World Cafe

Workshops / Games / Actions

9:00 – 14:30 hrs

• Dance workshop (student council, applicants for asylum)
• Crafting masks (Mrs Regler)
• Africa Games (Mr Scheckenhofer and class 10b)
• Dance and music workshop (Pamuzinda / Andi Richter)
• Africa Quiz (Mrs Kaspar, class 8a)
• "Journey of jeans" (Mrs Soyer-Bauer, Corina Flaig)
• Africa Puzzle (Mr Speer)
• Fashion of Africa – Design with second hand clothing/clothing swap party (Mrs Fromm, Mrs Soyer-Bauer)
• Language courses with live digital circuit to Africa (Mrs Link with class, applicants for asylum, student council, guests from Soth Africa)
• Upcycling workshop /articles of daily use from rubbish
• Courses with African stories (Diana Gaul and Werner Bader/Bavarian Radio Broadcasting, Marion Landherr, Mrs Wagner, Gabi Fischer, Uschi Hiltzinger-Kreid, Franziska Bertl)
• Open rhythm circle (Bill Saragosa)
• Soccer course (Mrs Spirkel, Mr Zapf, Mr Melzer, Mr Neumeier, Mr Stein)
• Rugby, cricket (Mr Zapf, Mr Frauendorfer)
• Bodypainting with African patterns (Cornelia Bertl, Agnes Wiedemann/Regens Wagner Rottenbuch)
• Cinema films (Mr Kohler)
• Plaiting African hair (Mrs Popp, Joelle Langun/TBA)
• Braiding bracelets (Mrs Gabler, Mrs Goetzinger)
• Necklaces from bast and pearls (Mrs Sommer)
• Music workshops – vocal and instrumental improvisation (Mr Utz)
• Construction of a solar cooker (Mr Braun, Mr Stein)
• Book bazaar (Mrs Soyer-Bauer, class 6c)
• Meditation / guided imagery program (Mrs Link)
• Plastic bag initiative (Mrs Soyer-Bauer, classes 10c and 10d)
• Run of donation (Mrs Achammer)
• Survival training (Mr Batzer, Mr Felber)
• Orienteering in open country (Mr Bauer)
• Programming and composition of an exposition of the population in Africa (Mr Gunther)

Art exhibition

• Advertizing column, zebra and African pictures (Regens-Wagner, Rottenbuch)
• Chair of giraffe and table (Primary School of Schongau)
• Pictures of acryl, sculptures, short film (TBA Herzogsaegmuehle)
• African masks (Weiherhof)
• Illustrated broadsheet of children (Foundation Scheuklappen)
• Photo exhibition of the guests from South Africa

Concept

Fundisanani – a Story that Creates Courage

South Africa and Germany

Both countries are linked through the enormous social  revolutions – the fall of the wall in Europe, the release of Nelson Mandela and the  end of apartheid in Africa. Since these epochal events both countries try to create a reunification or reconciliation of their civil societies in political, social as well as ecomonic change management as we all experience a long and stony way. Fundisanani wants to make a contribution here. This expression from the Zulu language means "teach one another“ – which means to accompany each other and teach each other what functions, what is helpful, what helps more. This is what our project wants to convert in the work with disadvantaged and often uprooted young people who only will be able to stabilize if they get their professional training and find possibilities to work. Experiences from previous projects show us that there is a big need, but also a lot of knowledge for fundisanani – teach one another.

And it functions

Thami learns to weld and starts his own business after his return to his township. First he builds and sells birds of stone and then changes to the manufacturing of yard gates and shutters. He establishes himself and earns his money with the things he has learnt. One of the young people from Germany, Hans-Georg, learns in South Africa a life-reality that underlines the validity of the support for his education and the support in the residential area for young people in Germany, and also is motivation for using the necessary chances. He sticks at it, passes his vocational training as a mechatronic and finds a work place.

Why qualification project for South African young adults in Germany?

Participants for this exchange have been chosen very diligently according to three main criteria:

• optimal matching of learners’ existing skills with Herzogsägmühle workshop offers.
• highest possible chances of effective use of learnings when coming back to South Africa.
• as the South African partner organizations work with disadvantaged youth and young adults, all learners are reflecting NEET status: Not in Education, Employment and Training.

Project Fundisanani is aiming at

Semi-professional qualification for the informal working sector: This has strong relationship to what is called “Informelle Bildung” or “Berufliche Bildung für den informellen Sektor” in Germany. Through these professional qualifying measures offered by Herzogsägmühle, SA learners experience higher chances on the SA labour market. This has already been shown by positive results in 2010 when implementing the first qualification project in Herzogsägmühle “Bopha Siyakhona 2010 and beyond”.

Horizon-widening: Guiding Learners through new and unfamiliar experiences and thus triggering increase of intercultural competence and self-confidence through positive experience in international context.

Benefit for home community: according to a traditional principle of social responsibility within a community (called “Ubuntu”), it is expected that learners bring their acquired knowledge back to their resp. communities and function as initiators for further development.

How do German young people and partners of cooperation participate in this project?

Intercultural learning should be made possible for students, their families and all people who are participants of this project; this also because of the background of the effort of inclusion and questions of integration.

The Welfen Grammar School with its social science branch accompanies the South African youth and will also prepare the visit as regards content. The concept plans that the German students take part together with their South African partners in the skills training as a manual craftsman for two weeks during the Whitsun holidays. The South African participants will have a grammar school pupil as tutor on their side. In this way the tutors also will get to know diverse jobs and at the same time they will acquire skills as a manual craftsman. Through the contact with handicapped people from a different culture they see the own position in relative terms. On top of that a new understanding for democratic processes can be learned.

In an ideal way students of the social science branch can apply for this and this practical training will count towards their compulsory practical training. Of course, also students of other branches or students of the upper school/advanced level can apply for a tutor. Preferred are students who can take in a South African young person as a guest in their family. The families of the students profit of the cultural and emotional exchange with the South African guests. They have the good feeling of having made the world a bit more worth living. The experience of a non-violent, open society and partnerships with equal rights, in which also men do housework and education, shall with the aim be embedded in the heads and hearts of our guests.

A female student of the Welfen Grammar School will participate in preparation in autumn 2013 in the Life-Skills-Training at the Thabiso Skills Institute in Capetown and then accompany/teach the tutors of the grammar school on the visit of the South African young people.

Within the framework of a big regional "Day of Africa" of the Foundation "Scheuklappen" in cooperation with the Welfen Grammar School, the Herzogsägmühle and many more other partners, the One-World-Concept and the compliance with the social and political developments in Africa  will play a more important role in the region of Schongau/Peiting.

How lasting is the project?

From this project could develop a lasting international partnership or a longterm supporting network between the Herzogsägmühle and regional partners as well as international partners in South Africa. As regards content the Thabiso Skills Institute and the Herzogsägmühle are very close because both are denominationally orientated. Possible are also partnerships of schools. Behind Thabiso Skills Institute is the Catholic Institute for Education (CIE) with a multitude of different schools. As the Welfen Grammar School has a lot of experience in international exchange, procedures working together are available

And for the participants?

Referring to the (lasting) improvement of the living conditions for the participants we aim at that what is meant in South Africa’s youth employment with the term Sustainable Livelihood: lasting safeguarding for a living. The idea/the wish is that the participants through the learning of certain capabilities in the Herzogsägmühle are in the position of building up a professional existence in their South African world of living. Either by starting a so called micro-business as small self-actings or by increasing their chances for an employment.

In the course of this it is not how it is done exclusively around the financial protection when the participants return. As well important are the individual experiences that are made during the stay in Germany. For most of them it is a unique opportunity to do such a journey. A lot of them not even would know two South African cities. The opportunity to have a look over borders will bring along turning-points and attitudes changing effects that result in ideas that were never thought of.

From the first exchange to Herzogsägmühle there are the following examples to be reported of:

Thami has deepened his acquired knowledge in welding and does not only earn his own money but supports his mother, two sisters and a nephew with the wages from his micro-business. Nomusa has got, thanks to her acquired practical knowledge in a bakery, at the beginning a job in a little bakery, then changed into a big supermarket to a take-away counter, and meanwhile has got a fixed job in home nursing of invalids. Also Nonbuchle’s plan has become a concept of success. Returned from her short training in a hairdressing salon she has seen, while doing the hair of her customers, the need of nursing the kids. Now she is child minder for a mischievous bunch and she also supports her family with her wages. Andile was taken over by PACSA with a fixed contract. Meanwhile he is on the permanent staff  at a state-run hospital thanks the acquired and consolidated IT-knowledge in combination with public relation studies.

How does the project run in South Africa and in Germany?

26th June – 7th July, 2013 in Germany

Bernd Schultheiss visits Misereor in Cologne with Fawzia Naidoo (responsible colleage of Thabiso Skills Institute) as well as the Herzogsaegmuehle and project partners in Bavaria.

Aim: Getting to know each other and concrete arrangements for the visit in autumn 2013 and the project 2014.

4th October – 20th October, 2014 in South Africa

Visit of three employees of the Herzogsaegmuehle with the leader Andreas Kurz and a student of the Welfen Grammar School of Thabiso in Capetown and Johannesburg.

Aim: Participation in a Life-Skills-Training for instructors for two weeks in Capetown (transfer of know-how about the South African education/training system as well as becoming acquainted with possible participants for the exchange and further preparations of the visit 2014. Visit of St. Anthony’s Skills Training in Johannesburg as well as further Skills Training Centers around Johannesburg and PACSA in Pietermaritzburg.

10th June – 6th July, 2014 in Germany

A four weeks stay of 10 South African young adults in a professional training together with the persons who are in charge of them in the region of Schongau.

Aim is the conveying of specific vocationally orientated know-how as well as the fostering of the development of personality. The conversion results in 2 phases: in the first two-weeks block the participants work out workpieces in project groups together with pupils of the Welfen Grammar School for a barrier free show-jumping course of senses.

Wood and metal works as well as constructive and creative works, each under guidance of technical instructors. In the foreground there is the learning of team work, planning of work routine, technical abilities and the development of personality in an intercultural background for the South African trainees as well as for the German pupils.

In the second two-weeks block it is about the conveying of proessional qualifications in a company background. The South African trainees will obtain special knowledge according to their professional main focus in technical part/short training for their respective future work field. At the end of the trainings there is a small assessment of performance and the handing over of a certificate of the received qualification.

4th July, 2014 - Regional Africa Day in Germany

With a regional Africa Day we want to have an experience with cultural and political aspects of the continent of Africa – also and especially before the background "One World" together with all partners in Fundisanani. The event will take place at the Welfen Grammar School in Schongau. Besides a lot of works of art, African games, workshops and information boards the visitors will expect dancing and music performances as well as typical African dishes. At the end the "Scheuklappen prize 2014" will be awarded for an excellent social engagement by the Foundation "Scheuklappen".