Equal Education

It is finally safe to say that my work at Equal Education has officially begun. After what has seemed like weeks of waiting, I’ve finally got my feet in the door and have some vision of how I can be of assistance at Equal Education. At first I was under the impression that I would actually be working with the gap year students to help them improve their scores on their Matric exams (the ones they take upon matriculating from high school), but this might not be the case. Although I still might be able to help them improve their English scores, we first have to establish an academic program. Joey Hasson, EE’s Youth Department director, told me that they tried to get this academic program off the ground in November without success. Although there are many teachers interested in coming to teach the gap year students, none of the EE staff members have enough time in the day to organizing this program. Joey has already collected a thick database of teachers’ contact information, which should make my job somewhat easier.

Today I did a whole lot of nothing, and I’m sure that this will be one day of many. Despite my eagerness to help, I couldn’t find any of the staff members to give me work to do because they were all in meetings. It was suggested to me that from now on, perhaps I could ask for a week’s worth of tasks at the beginning of each week so that I can be sure I have something to work on. Equal Education definitely needs the extra hands, and I am sure that after this week I will also have a better feel for where my hands are most needed. For now though I am trying to create each gap year student’s schedule so we can figure out what times during the day they have available to take classes, as well as which subjects they would like to re-test in. After we get this figured out, I can start going through the database of teachers and making phone calls to those who are qualified to teach the subjects that our students need. There is no saying how long this process could take, and it’s possible that I might not even get to see the implementation of the program in the short time I am here. This is where it is helpful to have the perspective that we as individuals are just one piece in a larger puzzle. In fact, one of the challenges facing EE is that so many of the volunteers, like me, are only here for a short period of time. So by the time they get settled in and comfortable with how the organization operates, they have to up and leave. In some ways this is just the nature of the organization, but they could certainly benefit from more consistency. Still, EE is doing great things.

That’s the update on the service project. Other than that, I am doing pretty well, though this week has been a bit exhausting. The food hasn’t been settling quite right in my stomach, which only encourages me to continue my all too starchy diet – a rotation of rice, pasta, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (These aren’t the only items on the menu, but they have certainly been taking precedent.) Everything seems to spoil here so quickly – milk, bread, yogurt, you name it. Perhaps this is just one more thing I have been taking for granted.