Hello from Munsieville, South Africa

Daphne Van is a GlaxoSmithKline PULSE volunteer working with us in Munsieville for the next 6 months - read her update from her first week in South Africa:
"I left Canada on the 16th June and was in London for one week of training with Project Hope UK in preparation for the work that we will be doing in Munsieville, South Africa. The week was busy in trying to understand many aspects surrounding what we will be doing in Munsieville and The Thoughtful Path programme. The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville is a ground-breaking initiative from Project HOPE UK that will act as a catalyst for change, by serving as a role model for other disadvantaged communities worldwide.

It will engage an entire community in changing the way 15,000 orphans and other vulnerable children are cared for in Munsieville, an impoverished township near Johannesburg, South Africa. This initiative focuses on the community members and their involvement in making sustainable change. The programme is made up of seven hubs, which are serviced by local people in Community Based Organisations (CBOs) to ensure sustainability. I am partnered here with Sarah Hatfield who is also on Pulse assignment and works from San Francisco as a Senior Regional Sales Manager. Sarah and I have quickly become friends and have already shared a lot of laughs and mini adventures together. We arrived in Munsieville last Monday after an 11 hr flight from London. We were happy to be on the ground and anxious to see the township. The director of the charity, Paul Brooks is here with us for the remainder of this week. The project manager here in Munsieville is Betty Nkoana. Betty is an amazing woman who understands the pulse of the community, leads the Thoughtful Path and ensures that we, as volunteers, have what we need.
We have other volunteers here with us as well: Abi Brooks (Paul’s daughter) who will be here until September and will be focused on early childhood development, and Yi He who is from China and studying epidemiology at the University of Tennessee in the USA.

My assignment is to work with the “shack communities”. These are homes that are built by the people themselves from whatever they can find, mostly metal. My assignment is to focus on health and safety within the these homes. On Friday we had two young women, Connie and Julia, took us on a walking tour of communities within Munsieville. Pictures say more than a thousand words ever could. The problems in these communities exceed the issue of their living space. There is poverty, lack of work, food, shoes, sanitation, electricity. And then there is what you do have: Curiosity, smiles as you walk by, children playing and laughing, mothers happy to say hello. Two families invited us to see the inside of their homes. Shocking to us, yes. But as you look around there are little things that you notice that indicate to me that even though they have very little they make the best with what they have. Pictures, photographs hanging on the walls for decoration and memories. A small space that is well organized. There are hazards in terms of the fuel they use to cook with and heat their homes. I will be working with the leaders in the community to look at real changes we can make now. Changes they would like to make knowing that they can!"