Action for Southern Africa, once the Anti Aparthied movement has long been challengers of the poverty stricken, aids ridden communities of Southern Africa. The champions of race relations and community cohesion in the area, they have often led the fight for a better life in the area. Interestingly before “Make Poverty History” they were indeed doing this single handedly. Many organizations, NGO’s and charities were concentrating on other parts of the world year on year. And as much as Bob Geldoff and his musical friends may have you believe, in fact nothing had really been done since the previous attempt at murdering a Christmas song. What he was always good at however (and I’ll except disagreement over his singing ability) is getting issues on the general publics agenda. Bono and Bob bringing pressing issues to the publics attention was always the first objective, unfortunately as we’ve witnessed once from Live8 whether other objectives were set or met remains to be seen.

I think many of us concerned with global poverty and Aids are still seeking to find the Live8 legacy. Its true to say that invaluable work is being continued by a number of organizations such as Oxfam but where has the passion, drive and commitment to sorting this problem from the organizers, public and government gone? The momentum’s gone and once again very little is being discussed- certainly in the public domain anyway.

I suppose what has enthused me even more so was my trip to South Africa and Swaziland. Primarily organized to bring together lobbying and campaigning bodies to continue where live 8 and Bob appear to have seemingly left. Ama, Sam, Steven and I were fortunate enough to be invited on the trip, taking us to Cape Town, Johannesburg and Manzini in Swaziland. HIV/Aids work and the effects of apartheid the order of the trip.

So off we flew, on the rather long journey to Cape Town where we were greeted with rain and cloud (certainly not what I’d expected). Those first few days in Cape Town were extremely rewarding. Political education at Robben Island, political reality in the townships and political will in South Africa’s Parliament building, undoubtedly gave us a great base to start with (even if I feel extremely ill on the boat!).

From there it was Jo’berg, getting there safely even after Steven broke the plane. Then to Alexandra to help support the local volunteers who talk to members of the communities about safe sex. This was, without question one of the most valuable experiences I’ve had. I’ve never questioned the grim reality of the images we often receive via Comic Relief but to speak to the members of those townships really hit home. The voluntary work being undertaken by these young people every week was nothing short of extraordinary. Most interesting for me was that all my preconceptions of townships were completely smashed in this trip. Many, although unemployed and often having ill family members were still surprisingly upbeat given their situation. Its certainly very humbling to hear such laughter through the streets of the townships. I suppose the biggest challenge those involved in HIV and Aids has are how its intrinsically linked with poverty. What was clear was that many were engaging in sex with others because they had very little to do. And as we know, the link between disease and poverty is true throughout the world.

Although this particular day in our itinery was overwhelming and at times upsetting, I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see in rural Swaziland.

Swaziland’s governance and human rights record is hardly a blueprint for democracy, so I was aware of some of the difficulties we may face in terms of funding and infrastructure. What I wasn’t prepared for were the atrocious and frankly frightening roads we had to travel down on the way to a neighbourhood care point to visit some of the orphans that “The Children Of Swaziland support”. I was very excited to see a neighbourhood care point in action.

When we pulled up the number of children with beaming faces that were waiting to greet us overwhelmed us. There were around 160 children and I couldn't imagine how the few women helps could manage to feed these children twice a day. We had brought lots of food for them and so they were justifiable excited to see us.

It was food time at the carepoint and myself and some of the others on the trip got some hands-on experience!

As this is a daily routine for many of the youngsters, they lined up in neat precision with the older ones taking responsibility for some of the smaller children and those who were the head of the household organised their siblings to ensure they did not miss out.

We spent most of our time giving out food, but also had the opportunity to chat and play with the children and get to know some of the women helpers. They expressed how tiring it often was supporting so many children and noted there concern at the increasing number of orphans they were receiving.

After leaving this Neighbourhood Care point we went to see what was the most upsetting part of the trip for me – a child headed household.

Child headed households are becoming more and more common in Swaziland due to the prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS. In many cases when parents die, the children are left with no-one to care for them and so somehow care for themselves. The particular family we met with consisted of the oldest sister who was 19years old, but had been caring for her five brothers and sisters since she was 14 years old. Due to desperation and the need to feed her family she traded sex for money and now has a child of her own and is pregnant again.

Although she was pregnant she was out collecting wood when we arrived. Instead of finding a downtrodden girl, we instead met someone who was surviving. We had brought some food for the family as a thank you to them for letting us come and meet them and they were very happy to receive this food as feeding a family of seven is not an easy task.

The problem with this story is that there are thousands more of them and the numbers are not decreasing. These children in Swaziland are like any other children anywhere else in the world. They deserve their childhood, free from loss, death and hardship.

This picture is of one of the siblings from the child headed household. He didn’t speak and was very wary of strangers. I think this picture pretty much sums up my emotions on this occasion.

Although meeting these children was extremely difficult, it was also incredibly inspiring. Knowing that there are organisations out there such as ACTSA, “the Children of Swaziland” and SWAPOL working tirelessly to support young people effected by HIV/AIDS and poverty in southern Africa reminds me of my and the student movements duty to campaign on internationalism issues. It reminds us why we started as a movement, how much we can both individually and collectively effect positive change across the world and how integral these struggles are to all of our struggles.

Soon after leaving Swaziland we met with various different trade unionists and student leaders such as the South Africa Union of Students and the ANC youth league as well as visiting a rural school who continued to inspire us to have a real focus on Southern Africa and build lasting links that will instigate campaigns and progress for the people of southern Africa.

It certainly gave me something to think about…I hope this has given you something to ponder too.

Watch out for lots of campaigns around Southern Africa that you can be involved in too.

Stephen x

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