The
Oprah South African Leadership Project provides cross-cultural
immersion and international exposure through travel
and study in South Africa for Morehouse College students.
In the future, it will involve an exchange of students
between Morehouse and South Africa, and will encompass
ethical leadership training and community service
in both Atlanta and South Africa.
June
7, 2005
"Oppression is worse than
death"
—Al Quran
 Today,
on the last day of our tour of South Africa, the Morehouse
students spent their last hours of the trip working
at Etafeni, a daycare facility for AIDS orphans in
the Nyanga township of Cape Town.
Words
cannot adequately describe the poverty and squalor
that large numbers of black Africans endure in the
new South Africa. Despite the wealth and opulent lifestyle
of white South Africans, also called Afrikaners, the
vast majority of black South Africans live in townships
riddled with shacks that spread as far as the eye
can see. The shacks are often without a sewage system,
running water and electricity.
The Morehouse
students have spent the last two days of their trip
helping to build new buildings and working with children
in one of the few day care facilities in Nyanga for
children affected with HIV.
As we
arrived for our last day of work with the children,
they jubilantly shouted with joy and ran to greet
us. The children, ages 3 to 7 years old, are very
small for their ages.
When I first walked into the small nursery, I was
horrified by the children's drawings displayed on
the wall. As a licensed professional counselor, I
have received training with diagnostic evaluation
of children through the analysis of their drawings.
Without digression into a complex discussion of diagnostic
testing, the children's artwork reflected great pain,
confusion and violence. I stood in front of their
pictures, stunned by what I saw.
The pictures
lacked symmetry and were often drawn in black and
red colors, showing no identifiable structures. Their
impoverished lives were clearly depicted in their
drawings, and I stood for a long time immobilized
by their confusion and pain.
After regaining my composure, I started to play and
interact with the children along with the Morehouse
men, who the children enjoyed immensely. The children
loved being lifted up into the air and mobbed me as
I lifted one child after another until my arms ached
from the exertion.
 One
child stood out for me because she kept coming back
over and over to be lifted up. She would come to me
and lift her little hands, looking at me with wide,
imploring eyes. As I repeatedly lifted
her, I noticed that she was very sick. Pus drained
from her ear and sores covered her face and emaciated
body. Finally, after numerous requests to be lifted,
I realized she just wanted to be held and I picked
her up and held her on my hip. As I stood there holding
her, I noticed that she was intensely watching my
face. I turned to look into her wide, innocent eyes,
and I suddenly realized that this child I was holding
would probably be dead from AIDS within a year.
Overcome
with great sadness, warm tears streamed down my face.
I stood there for what seemed like eternity looking
into the eyes of this small child—as precious
in God's sight as any white child—but condemned
to death because she was born poor and black in South
Africa. After several minutes, I put her down and
with a shrug of her little shoulders and a gesture
with her hands, she indicated that she was satisfied
and ran off to play.
Every
child on this planet has a right to food, shelter,
loving care and freedom from abuse and neglect. Even
the smallest children have a great light within them
and they deserve to be recognized, honored, cared
for and respected. The neglect and poverty I witnessed
on this trip, suffered by Africa's children, is an
outrage! Africa's children deserve better.
Where
is your rage?
Thomas "T.J." Prince '75 is associate
director of the Morehouse College Leadership Center.
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