™                                         A Charity Navigator Charity Navigator
UMZI WETHU VILLAGES FOR DISPLACED CHILDREN IN SOUTH AFRICA

THE UMZI WETHU APPROACH IN SOUTH AFRICA

WF will harness the opportunity offered by ecotourism growth and invite OVCs aged 13-18 in urban areas to join the uMzi wethu training and educational program in sponsored residential secondary schools placed outside game reserves. The uMzi wethu strategy is both simple and effective, combining the warmth and guidance of a lasting family relationship, the strength of traditional culture, the liberation of education and job skills training, and the energy of unfolding environmental awareness and commitment.

An uMzi wethu is a school with a residential option designed to get displaced and at risk children through their schooling in a safe and nurturing environment while also preparing them to be productive and successful in life. uMzi wethu targets those orphans who have no family and no options for placement – those most at risk of being lost to society. It provides a family environment with caretakers from the community and mentor-elders supplanting the fundamental parental role and relationship conveying local culture, respect for life, and values like honesty and compassion. It also teaches concepts such as reproductive health, gender equity, and the value of wild nature. Counseling will address psychological wounds incurred with death in the family and low self-esteem wrought by the stigma of HIV/AIDS. UMzi wethu will also help children become peer mentors of new arrivals and others needing special attention.

The uMzi wethu will be centered in the community. WF will partner with local community-based organizations and community care coalitions to mobilize their experience, knowledge and human resources for the benefit of each uMzi wethu. OVCs will receive their basic conventional education at local farm schools and access health care at the local clinic. In turn, the uMzi wethu brand and network will leverage resources such as computers for the schools and medicines for the clinic, thereby increasing the capacity of the community to serve OVCs.

WF has a long history with South Africa’s large, progressive network of game parks and wilderness areas. It can thus negotiate the establishment of children’s villages attached to these parks – using park infrastructure and modern building techniques. The nature and game reserve will “adopt” and play a mentoring role in the development of the uMzi wethu and its children, providing internships with hands-on opportunities to learn and practice skills in the field as well as in the classroom. Experiences in the surrounding natural areas, such as guiding and tracking in the game reserve, will instill a sense of personal responsibility while generating leadership and environmental management skills. The uMzi wethu will then help place its student participants in jobs with the nature and game reserve or elsewhere upon graduation.

The goal of uMzi wethu is to turn a displaced generation of the AIDS pandemic into leaders of a better future for South Africa. In place of disaffected and stigmatized youth, uMzi wethu will nurture young people with hope, confidence, vision and skills, who are also aware of the critical need for wildlife and natural resource protection and are custodians of their environment and society and potential conservation leaders. Four criteria guide uMzi wethu implementation, in accordance with the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. uMzi wethu will:
  • account for the best interests of the child in all matters, including admission and release;
  • give each child the opportunity to participate in decisions about placement and in program evaluation;
  • adopt a no-tolerance policy toward abuse by staff;
  • identify and address discrimination caused by the stigma of AIDS and of being an orphan; and
  • allow and support all children in developing their full potential.
uMzi wethu has six specific project objectives:--

(1) Provide a home environment away from the negative influences of urban centers (drugs, gangs and crime) in a safe rural setting, with the care and guidance of surrogate families in order to avert problem behavior and nurture self-esteem, integrity, and a positive outlook.

(2) Meet basic nutritional and healthcare needs, provide the life skills training that allows youths to care for others, and offer reproductive health education – all of which enhance the ability of OVCs to learn, function as productive adults, and avoid high-risk behavior.

(3) Give each participant the opportunity to earn a grade 12 qualification (South African equivalent of a high school diploma) – the core requirement for a job in ecotourism or any other industry – and gain the specialty job skills and field experience that give them an advantage.

(4) Prepare each participant for productive employment and life beyond uMzi wethu. Support job placement of participants upon graduation from uMzi wethu, and retain a guidance role.

(5) Teach OVCs to value and benefit from nature through the experiential education opportunities of the WF Imbewu program and traditional knowledge imparted by elders, and by the uMzi wethu’s relationship with the neighboring game reserve or park.

(6) Monitor and evaluate the advancement of children from entry through adulthood by way of assessments of psychological and physical well being, performance per national education standards, job success and participatory program evaluation measures.

uMzi wethu will be carried out in three phases: (1) feasibility study; (2) launch of pilots; and (3) rollout. It will rely on WILD’s support during planning and implementation, and has established a special office in the Washington, D.C. area to ensure uMzi wethu maintains the relationships with U.S. government officials, foundations, partners and others necessary to maximizing diplomatic support, funding, and publicity of the concept as it evolves to meet its potential.

Phase one (July 2004 – September 2005) involves outreach, coalition building, and planning as well as development, networking, and publicity activities. The project will acquire the input of a wide variety of experts and conduct a detailed feasibility study, which will result in the establishment of the first two villages in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa (Phase 2). Various working groups, training and evaluation teams will be put in place.

Both WF and WILD have endorsed the Code of Good Practice for NGOs Responding to HIV/AIDS, administered via the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In the feasibility study stage, WF plans to ensure questions of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, stigma and discrimination, impact mitigation, and up scaling are related to uMzi wethu and addressed.

Phase two (October 2005 – December 2007) involves staff training followed by building and establishing the first two villages. These pilot villages will be situated in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal regions of South Africa on the boundary of two private game reserves. These will play a training and oversight role in the logistical management of the land and infrastructure. Initial intake will be 100-200 displaced children, selected through existing community programs in the towns who will recommend youth who require uMzi wethu support.

Phase three (2008-2014) involves the continuous rollout of uMzi wethu villages with government and private financial support. These villages will link up with existing environmental and wildlife training programs to become the core training centers staffing many of Southern Africa’s national, provincial and private game reserves and environmental projects. The success of the two uMzi wethu pilots will prove the concept works and enable WF to make the case to the SA government for using former agriculture and police training colleges – built during apartheid to get whites back on the land and today about half stand empty – for uMzi wethu, making the rollout phase especially cost-effective. About 70% of the initial cost of an uMzi wethu is the infrastructure.

Monitoring and evaluation will be instituted for uMzi wethu at the feasibility study stage of project development. Methods and criteria for measuring performance will likely emulate the monitoring and evaluation framework and performance goals and indicators of the U.S. Government (proposed USAID Office for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children), UNICEF and UNAIDS, and the Code. In addition, the World Wilderness Congress – the longest running, global public environmental forum – will provide a venue for dissemination of results and feedback from an expert international audience throughout the various stages of uMzi wethu implementation. The next Congress will be held September 30-October 5, 2005, in Anchorage, Alaska. It will use uMzi wethu to demonstrate how applying environmental values to social needs can result in effectively integrated benefits to both nature and human society, and use the platform of the Congress to achieve visibility.

CONCLUSION

The uMzi wethu concept has broad support. uMzi wethu is endorsed formally by the International Conservation Caucus, a bi-partisan group of 54 U.S. Congressmen. WF and WILD have briefed the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, Assistant Secretary of State, and Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Global AIDS Office. uMzi wethu is endorsed by the South African Human Sciences Research Council and the South Africa Conservation Group and various AIDS non-governmental organizations. WF is also recruiting partners, such as Global Fund for Children and the Ubuntu community-based AIDS programs, to advise the project.

Because of the rapid growth of the AIDS epidemic, uMzi wethu pilots need to be in place within 9-12 months. AIDS orphans in South Africa are socially and economically disadvantaged, and at great risk. A feasibility study must be undertaken immediately to create a blueprint for the pilot uMzi wethu – cost-effective, results-oriented, and geared for replication within two years.

By 2010, one in four children will suffer the same fate in Botswana, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and
Scientific Affairs, John Turner, recently commented that uMzi wethu “will create a model that the whole world can use.”

We believe that over the next decade we can create an entirely new concept in education and care of those affected by the AIDS pandemic. With full national and international backing we will provide a hopeful and productive life for up to a million children. This would be only the beginning.
Angola
Chad
India
Mali
Namibia
South Africa
Uganda
West Africa
New Projects
Training



ABOUT THE WILDERNESS FOUNDATION AND THE WILD FOUNDATION:

The designers – The people putting the concept together are: Andrew Muir, who heads the Wilderness Foundation and is one of South Africa’s recognized leaders who works from the townships to the game reserves, designing and delivering programs with effective social and environmental results; and Dr. Don Pinnock, who is a criminologist by training, a gang specialist, and one of the country’s foremost environmental and travel writers. He designed the Usiko rights of passage program for youth people at risk and was one of the key drafters of the Youth Justice legislation.

The Wilderness Foundation is a non-profit NGO founded in 1972 by renowned international conservationist Dr. Ian Player and the late Magqubu Ntombela, a Zulu tribal chief and renowned game ranger in Zululand parks for 50 years. WF pioneered using wilderness and wild lands as a positive force for social change in South Africa by bringing historically disadvantaged youth, as well as political and community leaders, on trail to experience wild nature, rediscover cultural identity and build self-esteem and leadership skills. Since its inception more than 45,000 participants have been through its programs.

Under the leadership of Andrew Muir, WF’s entry-level program, Imbewu (“the seed”), has successfully mentored and trained 9,000 mostly black youth in the past six years. The program revolves around wise black wise elders who provide cultural and environmental mentoring on courses in the heart of the most pristine and wild national parks. Its success has led to rollout in other African countries, and it will now be redesigned and applied to uMzi wethu.

The WILD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in Ojai, California, that was founded by Dr. Player in 1974. WILD works internationally to protect and sustain wilderness and wild land areas, endangered wildlife, and human communities. WILD has always worked to address the needs of indigenous people through wilderness conservation programs and models. In 1977, WILD founded the World Wilderness Congress, and under the leadership of president Vance Martin, manages this results-oriented international project that hosts a global public forum occurring every 3-4 years around the world. It is designed to make a case for wilderness protection based on biological, economic, and social benefits.