Natasha's Africa: 14 October 2012

I was going to title this blog 'No Opportunities in the Valleys' but it didn't reflect the hope and optimism I wanted this post to entail! So here goes.....

In the past few weeks a new TV series has started called ‘The Valleys’. It’s a reality show that expects to give some young adults, from the South Wales valley areas, new opportunities by offering them work in the city. I tuned in for the first episode and then deleted it off my series link as it frustrated me so much.

The young adults were all referring to the city as this place where the pavements are paved with gold and making it sound as if it were the other side of the world. In reality, the city is a maximum of a 40 minute drive from any of their home towns!

They continued, throughout the whole of the episode, to state that there are no opportunities in the valleys!

It annoyed me so much. There are plenty of opportunities here if you look for them and go out and find them! With the city being a 40 minute drive away, further opportunities are in our midst if we want them badly enough. Why did these people need to rely on this TV programme to create their futures? Why could they not get up and create the opportunities they wanted to experience for themselves?

The benefits system in this country drives me crazy on times! I appreciate we need it for the hard times, but to hear of people aged 25+ who have never worked since leaving school, and don’t intend to work because they rely on these hand outs infuriates me. Surely this system should be there in cases of emergencies? Fair enough to those who suddenly find themselves out of work through no fault of their own, support them while they find a new vacancy. But for the people who depend on the systems, and manage to holiday every year, drive a nice car, etc. Is this a fair society?

Benefits should be a short term fix and should not provide for life’s luxuries, after all, what’s the point of working if they do? When you hear of families who get hundreds of ££££’s going into their house each week/month and their children still have inadequate clothing or no beds, then there is something wrong with that system! Something needs to change!

As for anyone thinking there are no opportunities in the valleys, why not book a trip to Africa? Take a look at the prospects most children living in a third world country have and then grumble about not having opportunities!

You see, on each trip I’ve made to Uganda, not once has anyone ever said to me that they lack opportunities. When you meet orphaned children, village children or former street children, they don’t dwell on the negatives in their lives but they hope for the future. They want to reach their potential.

Even when there are no school fees, they dream of becoming doctors, nurses, social workers, dentists, lawyers……. They all hope to gain enough sponsorship to attend college or university. And even when that dream falters and sponsors are lost or placements break down, they still have hope. They dream of a better tomorrow. They dream of families to call their own, for a job that will provide for their futures, of having a nice home and to provide for themselves.   They don’t want to survive on handouts, so why should we?

Future doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc

I remember during my first visit to Uganda, we visited a slum. I had never been to a place like this before and nothing could prepare you for the sights and smells. Unbelievably, the group organiser bumped into a young man who had been a former child in the care of the orphanage. A little piece of my heart broke that day, seeing this young man back in the slums. It made me realise that after care support is just as important as the support during care. He had been a street child, then institutionalised in an orphanage and all for what? Sponsorship programmes had gained him nothing, other than returning him to the slums! Then I realised I had measured his success by my own value base. He was so proud to see us visit the area he now called home. More than that he was so proud to show us that he had a place to call his own. It was nothing more than a tin hut, but it was his. He had paid for every inch of it, with money he had earned from being a barber in the slum area.

Outskirts of the slums

During a visit in 2010 we stayed in a beautiful hotel for a few nights, having a little bit of a holiday during our time in Uganda. The pastor we partner with asked if he could bring two of his daughters to see our hotel room. I didn’t know what to say. I had no reason to stop them but I thought it was a little cruel showing them such luxury for them to return to their hard beds later that night. Here was this family, living in relative luxury in a mountain village by the fact they had concrete flooring and electricity, to bring them to by Ugandan standards a hotel that was a 5* hotel, I couldn’t see the logic. I asked him what he hoped to gain by bringing them here. His reply – ‘I want to show them what they can aim for in life. I want them to dream big.’