29 Jan 2009 – Black Sash

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were the first three days of our internships here in Cape Town. After touring the placements last week and testing out the commutes by public transit, the travel into the city to Black Sash wasn’t too unnerving. Two of us are working for the organization, which is located on the fourth floor of an office building situated just a few blocks from the minibus taxi terminal. Another two students are working at Sonke Gender Justice Network, just a few blocks away.

Cassidy and I are working under staff members Jane Coombe and Ratula Beukman in the National Office of Black Sash, and we’ve spent most of our first week perusing publications and annual reports to familiarize ourselves with the organization and its goals. We work out of a large room that’s been converted into a rather homey office space, sectioned off by several old metal desks that are usually covered in stacks of colorful papers and writing utensils. The high-ceilings and tall windows allow for a lot of light, and on Tuesday morning we leaned out over the sills to watch a group of striking workers from the townships march down Adderly St.

Already we’ve joined Jane and Ratula for several meetings with Sash workers from other branches and departments of the organization. We meet around a large wooden table at the center of the office space, which, like the much of the wall space, is covered in vibrant African cloths. Adding to the laid-back feel of the office, Jane often walks around the carpeted room barefoot, so the atmosphere is far from the uptight professionalism of most American work places I’ve known. The organization – like most nonprofits in South Africa – has very limited funding and staff, so meetings rarely include more than the few fulltime staff workers and the two of us. The discussions are always unstructured and open, with lots of idea-shaping and group decision-making taking place in a short period of time. I can’t help but compare the environment to that of my internship this summer in Hartford. There, we’d held formal, lengthy staff meetings every Monday morning, and rarely did I come away with the same feeling of accomplishment that I have from the meetings with Black Sash. The contrast is remarkable.

The work we’ve been doing, in our first days with the organization, has been largely research-intensive. We’ve written several briefs on current social welfare issues, including critiques of the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the potential reforms of the Extended Public Works Programme. It is a great time to be working at Black Sash because of the intensification of social and political issues in the media during these three months leading up to the presidential election. Without getting too heavy handed with the details of the current political situation, it is important to explain that South Africa’s fledgling democracy is undergoing a period of rapid political realignment, and many prominent leaders are facing corruption charges or have distanced themselves from their former parties.

As political leaders try to drag sections of the voting population with them to new parties and platforms, the mudslinging and agenda-setting has been incredibly divisive. The attacks are much more callous – and the issues far more sordid – than those we witnessed during the American presidential primaries last year. For example, the leader of the reigning ANC party is, at this moment, on trial for rape charges. It also appears he will be running for office as a viable candidate in April.

Another interesting aspect of the election process in South Africa is that no official election date exists, and this spring’s Election Day has yet to be determined. Many people believe that voting will take place during the days we are in flight back to Connecticut, but even this is still speculation.

In the meantime, Black Sash has assumed its usual role as political watchdog and advocate for social and economic welfare. The organization studies the promises and policies of all of the potential parties and candidates for office, then presses politicians to be open and responsive to the plight of impoverished, unprotected, and unemployed South Africans. One of our meetings this week dealt with the framing of the organization’s official response to the current president’s State of the Nation address, which will take place in early February. I hadn’t realized just how much preparation and planning went into the sound bites and “round table” responses we so often hear quoted on news programs on Sunday morning.

Though we’ve only been at the organization for three days, we’ve already been entrusted with important – and largely unsupervised tasks – like writing reports and researching government policies. Getting thrown head first into projects like these, we’ve discovered, tends to be the standard at all of our placements. On Wednesday, the fifteen of us met to discuss our experiences from the first days at our internships,, and the trend amongst the group seemed to be that we all were rapidly included into the organization or school communities at which we’ve been placed. In addition to being warmly welcomed and encouraged to take on active roles in certain projects, we also have been introduced into the gritty, impassioned, and often barebones world of the South African nonprofit sector. The global economy has taken its toll on many of the NGOs, and so far it’s been both enlightening and overwhelming to be thrown into such internships during this period of political and economic upheaval.

Over the next few weeks, as parliament opens and several important political speeches take place, our roles and projects at Black Sash are likely to grow even more intriguing.