Bulembu 2010

After months of planning and preparation, a group of students from Court Moor School, accompanied by two members of staff and four youth workers including our own Mischa Constant, flew to the town of Bulembu in Swaziland for an experience which none of them will ever forget — and for all the very best reasons!
(Click on the images to see a larger version of the picture.)

 

Read Mischa's full report.

 

Swaziland is a poor country. With an unemployment rate of over 30% and an average wage of less than 50p per day, it has been ravaged by AIDS/HIV with 43% of the population infected and a life-expectancy of just 32 years. As a result there are over 120,000 orphans in the country, most of whom will receive little or no care. Out of this tragedy, Bulembu is trying to give life and opportunity to 250 of these children.

 

Until the turn of the millennium, Bulembu was a thriving asbestos mining community, but when the mine owners abandoned the community in 2001 the town's economic situation rapidly declined, even in comparison with the rest of the country. In 2006 a group of social developers 'rediscovered' Bulembu and created Bulembu Ministries; their aim is to make the town self-sustaining by 2020, and to be able to care for 2,000 orphans by that date.

 

To achieve this ambitious target, the town needs help from outside teams coming in to help build, teach and learn. In 2009 planning began with supporters from Court Moor school, Hampshire Youth Services, the Lightning Fast Foundation and Faccts to take a small group of students from Court Moor School to Bulembu. The aim was to give practical help to the town in the form of young, enthusiastic volunteers who would benefit from experiencing at first hand life in a community utterly different to their own in all aspects: economic, social, cultural and spiritual.

 

The young people from Fleet who went on the trip had to raise their own funds and they spent months in preparation, learning about Swaziland and Bulembu, and learning how to work together as a team, solving problems and overcoming difficulties.

 

All this effort was amply justified when they arrived in Bulembu. The Court Moor team was the youngest so far to visit Bulembu and this caused some excitement in the Bulembu schools, where the team helped to teach the children there. The main project was to renovate of an old school, which meant two weeks of hard work cleaning, scraping, and painting. Competition to display the largest blisters was hotly contested!

 

Fortunately the accommodation, although basic, was comfortable, and the meals were more than enough to replace all the expended calories. A club house was made available to the team for meetings and relaxation and made a great base from which to work.

 

Students and staff all agree that this was a fantastic experience and one that should be repeated, to build upon the relationships that have been forged and to continue to play a part in the vision of Bulembu. Many of the young people are planning to return to spend more time with the friends they made there, most of whom are deeply committed Christians.

 

For Faccts this whole project has been an adventure of faith. Working with school and youth service to facilitate a group of almost 100% 'non-Christian' students and staff from a white, middle-class, affluent area to engage effectively with a poor, predominantly Christian African community on the other side of the world has been an amazing experience — long may the project continue!

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