Posts
Human Rights
THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN ON NOVEMBER 22nd.
I always feel so overwhelmed at the beginning of a new
post. I want to convey to you all of the
wonderful things that have been happening here, but I worry my simple typing
skills won’t be enough. The conversion
of real experiences to words on a screen is a daunting task. But, hey. It’s worth an effort.
So, I have spent the last 4 weeks at the Human Rights
project here in Cape Town. *Heavy
breathing* There is so much to say!!!
Okay. You can do this. Deep breaths.
In and out. Okay. So the sixteen of us finished up at the
building site on a Tuesday. We had a
little farewell party and gave food to the children and the workers at the
community center. It was sad bidding
goodbye to Deen and the long-term building volunteers, but Deen assured us that
it wouldn’t be goodbye forever. He had
spoken with the South Africa Projects Abroad main office and got permission for
us to return to building for our final week in the country. That was comforting. So, at half past noon, we were off, onto the
next chapter in South Africa.
Another global gap added on to the program making us
17. Our herd then headed to PAHRO
(Projects Abroad Human Rights Office) for an induction on the Human Rights
Project which we were going to begin work in the next day.
We were given an overwhelming amount of information. Basically, the Human Rights Project is divided
into two parts: Legal Services and Social Justice. Legal Services is just as it sounds. PAHRO provides pro-bono legal work for those
in need. We learned that the majority of
the clients are refugees from Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of
Congo, but there are also plenty of other types of cases including family and
property law, theft, and murder. Only
the interns (Human Rights Office word for volunteers) who have had legal
education in university are able to have cases.
I was not expecting to have my own cases, but I was hoping to be able to
get involved in the legal services side of the project somehow. The other part of the project is Social
Justice, which entails visiting both women’s shelters and juvenile detention
centers and running workshops on life skills and education of rights. The majority of the work the global gaps were
to do would be Social Justice. Only the
females can go to the women’s shelters (Sisters Inc. and St. Anne’s) while
everyone can go to the juvenile detention centers (Vredelus, a center for
girls, and Ottery and Bonnytoun which hold all boys).
All 17 of us were placed into the project and were separated
into 3 groups. Each group was given an initial assignment. Now, only 4 global gappers remain in the
project, including myself. Over the
first few days about half of us switched to projects more suitable for
them. From what I have gathered in
asking those who switched projects why they quit PAHRO, the majority say
because they had to work to find work. I
was completely alright with the fact that work wasn’t handed to us. I understood that we were in a functioning
office and that we were not the focus of anyone. Everyone was busy and I did not expect to be
babied. So, I offered my services to the
interns busy with cases, and devoted myself to the aid of others and to the initial
assignments given out by Maria, the head of the project.
My group’s initial assignment was to compile Amnesty
International reports on refugees and immigration from Burundi, Rwanda, and the
Democratic Republic of Congo. I decided
to go the extra mile to guarantee the usefulness of the binder we were
constructing. We did this by writing
summaries for each document so the reader would not have to rifle through
dozens of documents to find the information they wanted. They would only have to read the summaries
and then they would know if the document following the summary would be useful
to them. We divided the reports by
nation and then again by topic. After
about a week of working on this binder, I turned it in and was congratulated on
the hard work. My reward was more
work. And thus began me being the
busiest thing that ever existed.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I apologize for my absence from blogging, but
boy oh boy did I get busy. The work in
the Human Rights Office occupied long hours, and by the time I would get home from
my hour long commute, I would be too tired to write. I would just eat, shower, and sleep. Occasionally I would rally and socialize with
my fellow glappers, but even this became a rarity due to exhaustion. I even managed to contract bronchitis and the
flu at some point along the way. But, I
made it to the doctor and got some medicine, so I was fine after a week of pill-popping. Anyway, in addition to work, I decided to
apply to college again. Yay me! I decided 3 days before the November 30th
deadline to apply to UC Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. I quickly wrote the personal statement like a
maniac and with the help of my Mom back at home, completed the rest of the
application with a day to spare in case the system crashed. I was also taking time to look into two universities
in Cape Town, University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University. UCT was in the same area as my work, so I was
able to visit the campus numerous times, but I never got the chance to visit
Stellenbosch as it was a few trains away.
They are both good universities, but my Mom was concerned that I wouldn’t
get a good enough education. This led to
me choosing to apply to 7 Common App schools, more than I had applied to in my
senior year. Now that I have been home
for almost two weeks, you’d think I would be spending my time with friends and
family, excitedly sharing my experiences with them, but alas, all I do is
essays. With the two Common App essays
and 7 sets of supplements, the busy-ness has followed me back to
Claremont.
I leave for Peru on the 4th of January, which is
in 8 days. I am very much looking
forward to utilizing my Spanish and teaching teachers English. I am also extremely excited for the host
family situation. In Ghana and South
Africa, the whole group stayed with one very accommodating family, but in Peru
we will be split into smaller pairs and trios.
This will create a more personal connection with the host family and
give me a more in-depth exposure to the culture. The food will also be spectacular. RICE AND BEANSSS. ARROZ Y FRIJOLESSS. It is strange thinking about leaving again,
and this time for 4 months as opposed to the first leg’s 2.5 months. At least this time around I can kind of know
what to expect, and I know I can handle being abroad on my own. I learned so much in the first two and a half
months and am looking forward to what the rest of my gap year has to offer me.
Below is a list of all of the Common App schools I am applying
to and their location. I won’t be home
until after I have to commit to a university, so I will not be able to visit
the schools I get accepted to before I have to choose one. That will be strange, but we shall see how
many I actually get accepted to. I am
applying to some very competitive schools.
Columbia New
York, NY
Cornell Ithaca,
NY
Dartmouth Hanover,
NH
Duke Durham,
NC
Harvard Boston,
MA
Princeton Princeton,
NJ
Yale New
Haven, CT
Wish me luck!
Next time you hear from me, I will be in Peru! Thanks for reading! Happy New Year!
