As part of the Bridge Builders Conference, Hezekia Agwara, co-chair of the African Caucus at Harvard, moderated a discussion on grassroots leadership for development in Africa. Agwara is originally from Kenya, and works with the African Caucus to hold awareness campaigns, on issues both economic and social, for people interested in African affairs. The two panelists leading the discussion were Busisiwe Matukane of South Africa and Evaristo Ndhlovu of Zambia.
Matukane spoke on her work with Mozambique refugees in South Africa, whose population numbers around 185,000. Denied citizenship status, many Mozambique refugees suffer extreme poverty and human rights abuses with no protection from the law. Matukane serves eight villages, traveling to poor communities whose people do not have the means to travel to her. On Mondays and Fridays her clinic, where she distributes medicine and food, is open to the public. From the clinic, she also develops advocacy programs to ensure the poor refugees have better access to their rights. Currently, a case, which began in March 2003, is pending to give two elderly Mozambique refugees who have lived in South Africa for over twenty years legal status so that they may be eligible for social grants for food and medicine.
“The government should give legal status to refugees so that the poor, especially the elderly, may be eligible for social grant money so that they can survive,” says Matukane.
Evaristo Ndhlovu works to advocate for and raise HIV/AIDS awareness in eastern Zambia. Twenty-nine kilometers away from the nearest city, his grassroots community efforts include getting condoms, medicine, and blood testing equipment to local communities that lack hospitals or clinics. The two community schools, employing three teachers each, are insufficiently funded to educate people on current HIV/AIDS prevention tactics. Ndhlovu, with the help of local churches, promotes outreach in these rural areas. He says one of the biggest problems with the awareness campaign is linking national efforts in prevention of HIV/AIDS to the grassroots level. Though international organizations and NGOs work in Zambia for the HIV/AIDS cause, most are along major train lines, and their services and funding are unavailable to rural communities.
The speakers gave a provocative glimpse into social work in rural Africa. The 19 audience members ranged from students to international development workers, many of whom had worked in African NGOs in the past. The well-informed contingency discussed the distribution of condoms and the awareness of contraceptive measures in rural Zambia, where the elders preach abstinence, but the youth promote condom use. Questions were also raised on how to change cultural practices that are detrimental to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, such as the custom of young girls losing their virginity to an elder man who has had numerous partners.
The audience was curious about the sexist barriers Matukane faced as a woman in a leadership role in South Africa. She responded that her tenacity has been alleviated with experience, and that she can now actively work on level ground with men for her cause. The questions and answers highlighted both the controversial and confining demands that these two social workers face.
Elizabeth Mann is a regional editor for Cultural Survival.
