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| Elise at Maidens Cove |
A lot of
my excitement to come to Cape Town has a lot to do with my work at UConn. I am
an international relations and human rights double major, and have spent the
past few years studying global development and social issues. I am currently a
junior and not sure what I’ll be doing when I graduate next year: my dream job
would be working at an NGO or development agency such as the United Nations
Development Programme. I decided to go on this trip as a way to explore these
interests in a concrete and personal way, rather than just reading about them.
Here in
Cape Town I will be working with
Operation Hope, an organization aimed at
providing disadvantaged youth in the city with entrepreneurial skills as an
avenue to economic empowerment. I’m really looking forward to my interaction
with people in the city and becoming more than a spectator. So far we have
visited some incredible landmarks including Cape Point, Boulders Beach, and
Robben Island. But these places—even those with historical significance—haven’t
really delved into the meat of why we are here.
On Friday we visited
townships, which to say the least was an incredibly emotional experience for
everyone. Facing the contrast of the city’s beauty to its poverty and
segregation is jarring: understanding and reconciling these differences will
take a lot more time and exposure to the people themselves in the townships.
I’m taking comfort in the fact that we will have the opportunity to be far more
than tourists in the months to come. I'm very excited to learn about ways
communities are claiming agency and addressing problems from the grassroots up.
My personal goal isn’t to fix any problems here because I know I’m just a small
part of a small solution. Instead I hope to be humbled and explore my own
identity in a way that I couldn’t anywhere else.
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