SOUTH AFRICA - Insights and encounters for the project trip
2025-03-27
The itinerary was quite intense: two elementary schools and a secondary school, four different day-care centers in rural and urban areas, two vocational-education centers for young people, two Scout groups, a choir, a children’s aid group – not to mention the many intercultural encounters, impressions, and landscapes along the way. All of this and more was on the schedule for the interested employees from the Schwabe Group who spent a good week in March 2025 seeing many of the Umckaloabo Foundation’s different projects.
Before this trip began, a group of Rotary Club members took part in a similar tour, and subsequently the board of the Umckaloabo Foundation had also traveled along that route to gain an overview of how the projects were proceeding.
"We were quite overwhelmed by the way we were greeted here at every turn. It is wonderful to see that our support is all going to new classrooms, teaching materials, infrastructure and things to play with. Every cent is being put to good use!" said one enthusiastic member of the tour group.
Encounters and intercultural understanding
The work of the Umckaloabo Foundation lives from its good-faith collaborations with dependable and competent partners on site who we work with closely. But it also lives from the encounters it promotes. Project trips such as this one provide an opportunity to sneak a peek at other people’s lives, take part in their everyday routines and daily reality of many South Africans, and understand certain contexts more thoroughly. They make it possible to understand intercultural and social issues more profoundly. And this too benefits the projects.
With their emotional and overwhelming welcome – no matter whether at day-care centers or schools – our project partners immediately won the travelers’ hearts. The students performed traditional dances, the choir at the Ekuphumleni secondary school presented sophisticated repertoire, and the teachers’ and students’ enthusiasm was infectious and gripping.
Over the course of the next days, the group experiences exactly this again and again: great joy at the opportunity to get to know each other. Everywhere you could feel how important not only the financial support from the Foundation is, but also the personal encounters and presence on site.
The participants of the project trip meet people who, with their vision and determination, initiate projects that make a difference for children and young people. Who want to show them who they can be, how they can shape their future.
The Masifunde education center in the Walmer Township near Port Elizabeth also offers people form very small kids to unemployed adolescents space for development and self-empowerment. The Foundation's board of trustees officially inaugurated the Montessori daycare center and saw the urban garden and the "Kasiconomy" hub for young entrepreneurs - in addition to all the other educational opportunities for disadvantaged children and young people, which provide encouragement and show prospects.
