Still on the road

Thursday, 5 June 2008 | posted by WEF_Africa

Greetings my fellow activists and a great and warm welcome to Africa, we are grateful to host the delegates of the World Economic Forum Africa (WEF). We are even happier to host the participants of the Greenwhich and the Guildford Forums. They all arrived very slowly but with the exception of Ibrahim they all made it to the most beautiful city in the world. The issues that we face on the African continent are slightly more different from the issues we discussed at the previous forums although we touched on some of the surface issues at the meetings we are forced to dig deeper and have deeper discussions around the needs of mother Africa.

The preparation for the World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa was led by Asanda and I and we were guided by Jean September, Director British Council, Cape Town and Ms Fatima Swartz, British Council-Peace jam project manager. Working with such a capable team has allowed us to learn so much more and to equip ourselves with the skills needed for the work that we do. Putting together the programme has given us some indication of what the team in Guildford was going through. We really now understand the stress John and Linda went through. The WEF Africa presented us with an opportunity to engage other young Africans in a critical discussion about the state of our continent and the role that we as young people can play. On the Friday 30th May 2008 I braved the rainy weather to meet Nick at Cape Town International Airport and I was a little late after running around the construction. I eventually found him and took him to my house where he spent his first two days on African soil.
One of the themes that we discussed on the first days of the two day conference was about sharing our activism. We spent a great deal of time looking at what we do in the various countries and how our activism defines us. We set out our expectations for the week and also set personal and collective goals for the week.

The second theme that acted as an umbrella for many of the discussions that we looked, it was themed: What affects young Africans? We posed this question to open the discussion of where we come from and how Africa has been defined and who defines Africa? We felt that young people do not understand their role in society and this is one of the problems that they face. This also leads to a lack of youth involvement and participation and economic rights. One of the solutions we discussed was Education and what should be included into our curriculums- we should include moral values, diversity in culture, Identity, sexuality. We concluded that in order to educate Africa's next generation we need to make certain provisions starting with Free education- and working towards social cohesion. One of the suggestions could be international schools
The issue of health and HIV/AIDS were top on the list as well and we were joined by a young woman, Ms Thembi Zungu, who is a medical aid assessor at the biggest private health insurer in Africa- Discovery Health. One of the key issues that we looked at was access to health that is affordable. Young people should be entitled to better health care and access to this service should be one that young people feel comfortable to use.

On the second day we visited a community projects and discussed Sustainable development and we saw how a Cape Town community called Manenburg is creating economic sustainability. They are have set up Community led inniatives that allows them to incorporate social skills, development skills and also assist with providing a blue print for communities across the world. The Manenbergs people project showed us how this can be done. Ovwer the next couple of days we are going to keep you updated on the sessions at the WEF Africa and also about our opinions.