Charity begins abroad
SOUTH AFRICA | Visitors to Johannesburg see a city of vast contrasts where poverty and prosperity go hand in hand
RAVELING AROUND SOUTH AFRICA -- Schoolboys and girls, wearing black and yellow uniforms and large smiles, quietly march down the street and into a gated center in the Zola community of Soweto, just outside Johannesburg.
I watch as the children line up single file in the yard in front of an open window, where from inside a woman hands each child a peanut butter sandwich and glass of milk. The giddy children scatter to sit in the playground, spilling milk in their excitement. For many, it would be their only meal of the day.
(Kelly Carter/For the Sun-Times)
In the township of Soweto, I saw children orphaned by AIDS, who were naked from the waist down and shoeless, run through the dirt in the hostels, where residents live in small, dark one-room homes with no electricity or water. One woman I met plays mother to eight young orphans. As I traveled along route N2 from Stellenbosch to Cape Town, I initially -- and naively -- mistook a sprawling shanty town in Khayelitsha, where about 500,000 residents live in squalor -- with next to nothing except crime and disease -- for a garbage dump full of discarded corrugated metal until I saw clothing on makeshift clotheslines blowing in the warm wind.
None of these sights has been the cause for the recent tourism boom in South Africa, population 47 million. Instead it is the cosmopolitan setting of Johannesburg, scenic Cape Town with its mountains pressed against the shimmering blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean; the tranquility of the wine-producing villages in Cape Winelands, South Africa's equivalent of California's Napa Valley; several World Heritage sites including Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and the bush where safaris offering Big Five viewing are the big draw.
No wonder South Africa has experienced a 15 percent increase in the number of U.S. visitors in the last year and more tourists from around the world are flocking to the country that will host soccer's World Cup in 2010 as well. International arrivals have grown tenfold -- from 640,000 in 1994 to 7.5 million in 2006. Tourism now earns more foreign exchange than gold exports.
What a number of tourists probably don't see up close is the poverty in communities. Nor do they realize how they can help a country that is still feeling the aftershocks of apartheid with inadequate health care, education and opportunities for non-whites. It isn't often touted in slick brochures and is rarely advertised at local tourist offices, yet travelers interested in helping throughout this poverty-stricken area have a multitude of charitable options available that don't require a huge chunk of time, meaning there's still plenty of time to enjoy South Africa's many attractions.
We can't all be Oprah Winfrey and build our own school outside of Johannesburg or donate $1 million for a girl's college dormitory at CIDA City Campus in downtown Johannesburg as the queen of talk did, but these days visitors have options such as having hotels and lodges arrange community visits, booking community tours that benefit nonprofits or contacting nonprofit organization on their own to ask what they can do while here.
For instance, the African Children's Feeding Scheme, which feeds 18,000 children a day and is supported by companies such as diamond behemoth De Beers and KPMG Inc., welcomes volunteers to help at any of its 13 feeding centers. It could mean dispensing food to the kids, cleaning the playroom or teaching English. Children from 1 to 6 years old, many who are malnourished and some who are either HIV or AIDS affected or infected, spend an extended amount of time at three of the centers and are given two balanced meals daily plus morning and afternoon snacks. Not only does the organization hand out food to older schoolchildren but it also encourages mothers to help themselves by providing gardens where they can augment their limited food supply. The locals also can learn about health education and child rearing as well as how to sew.
Over the past decade, well-heeled guests staying at the ritzy, 108-year-old Mount Nelson hotel in Cape Town have raised more than $151,000 for the Hotels Housing Trust. The organizations assists in providing homes for South Africa's homeless via donations received from visiting tourists staying at hotels in Cape Town and Johannesburg. It has helped create more than 100 homes for families.
Now, Mount Nelson's individual guests and groups also can go into the community and help build homes. Through a new program called "Building Holidays" and arranged with the Hotels Housing Trust and Habitat for Humanity South Africa, there are plans to build 250 new homes in Mfuleni Village, a relatively new township about 25 miles outside of the city. The simple houses can be constructed in a week's time and guests work alongside the future homeowner.
Safari-goers staying at any of CC Africa's seven lodges in South Africa (there are more than 40 on the continent) can request a trip into the community and visit various local schools and clinics. I did just that during my stay at Kirkman's Kamp, on the eastern part of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve and bordering Kruger National Park, in between my morning and afternoon game drives. I checked out pre-, primary and high schools, clinics and vegetables gardens in the nearby communities of Lilydale, Justica and Huntington that had benefitted by CC Africa's guests.
Travelers get to specify if they want their donation to go toward education, health or small business and can even narrow it more specifically if desired.
I learned about an American couple who went on a community visit and afterward gave $200. The next time the pair vacationed at a CC Africa lodge, they asked to see how the money was used and were shown repaired tables and chairs at Hlomani High School. Pleased, they donated another $900, which was used to divide a classroom into two at the crowded high school. Again satisfied, the duo gave $23,000, which went toward the construction of the high school's media center with a library on one side, a computer room on the other and, of course, recognition for the couple on the building.
For those who want to help those in advanced education, there's CIDA City Campus in Johannesburg's Central Business District. The accredited institution, supported by bold-faced names including Winfrey, Richard Branson, Suze Orman and Russell Simmons and corporations such as JP Morgan, Microsoft and Daimler Chrysler, provides a "free" business degree to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Formal volunteer work requires a minimum commitment of eight months but the university allows travelers to come by and check out the campus in hopes that the individual will sponsor a student financially and mentor the student online.
In Cape Town, the Amy Biehl Cultural Township Tour benefits the nonprofit Amy Biehl Foundation named after the anti-apartheid activist and college student who was killed in an act of political mob violence in the Guguletu Township outside of Cape Town in 1993. The foundation's goal is to develop and empower youth in the impoverished and poverty-stricken townships by providing educational and cultural activities. Its programs reach more than 3,000 children a week and include creative and fine arts, HIV/AIDS education, computer literacy, sports, and greening and the environment.
Part of the tour includes a visit to the schools where the foundation's programs are taught and a stop at the Amy Biehl Golf Driving Range, which claims to be the only golfing facility in a township.
The day I left Franschhoek, a charming village in the Winelands, restaurant owners were getting together to discuss launching a program that would allow diners, most of whom are tourists, to add a minimal amount of money to their bill in an effort to feed street children.
Just another small way to help a country with big challenges.
Kelly Carter is a free-lance travel writer based in New York City.
Getting there: From Chicago, United Airlines (www.united.com) offers nonstop service from O'Hare to Washington for connections with Star Alliance partner South African Airways nonstop to Johannesburg, the gateway to the rest of the country.
When to go: Beachgoers will enjoy October to March the best. June through August are ideal because the grass is lower, making game viewing easier. However, if you plan to do both, October and early November are ideal as temperatures are warm but not too hot where the animals hide all day. South Africans generally vacation in the summer so tourist spots are most crowded from mid-December to late January.
LODGING* Westcliff, Johannesburg: Westcliff, www.westcliff.co.za
* Mount Nelson, Cape Town, www.mountnelson.co.za
* CC Africa, (seven locations in South Africa), www.ccafrica. com
* Le Quartier Francais, Franschhoek (the Winelands), www.lequartier.co.za
FOR MORE INFORMATION* African Children's Feeding Scheme: www.acfs.org.za
* Mount Nelson's Building Holidays: reservations@mount nelson.co.za
* CC Africa: www.ccafrica.com
* CIDA City Campus, www.cida.co.za; contact Nesan Chetty at nchetty@cida.co.za or Molefi Lekaota at mlekaota@cida.co.za.
* Amy Biehl Cultural Township Tour: info@privatehire.us or www.amybiehl.org