In 1992, Tzu Chi planted its first seed on the continent by establishing job-training classes in poor South African villages. Tzu Chi volunteers helped natives become independent by working on their basic problems.

Today, ten years later, Zulu children attend schools that have roofs. The women don't just stay home anymore; they put on Tzu Chi uniforms and take care of orphans, elderly people, and AIDS patients in their communities.

Tzu Chi people in South Africa work together with one mind and one goal, spreading love in the country. They hope that in the next ten years, the spirit of Great Love will draw a colorful rainbow throughout their country.

Independence and Love

By Ou Chun-ping
Translated by Lin Sen-shou
Photographs by Yen Lin-chao　

Faraway on the African continent, a group of Zulu women in Tzu Chi uniforms--blue tops and white skirts--work with Tzu Chi volunteers to assist poor people. These Zulu women were originally housewives who passed each day merely surviving. However, they have now improved their families' lives and have also found goals in their own lives. What could have led to this change?
　

At 5 in the morning, the sun wakes the sleeping people of Masonini, a Zulu town outside of Durban, South Africa. Five middle-aged women are spreading fertilizer and cutting weeds in the fields and young women are putting on their clothes and rushing to work in the factories.

Mobongi, 22, skillfully gets herself ready and leaves with her lunch bag. She walks for 20 minutes to a bus stop to catch the bus. She has to take two buses to reach a garment factory before 8 a.m. to punch her time card. It is far away and the work is hard, but she is happy to have a steady job that brings money to the family.

Mobongi has been interested in sewing ever since she was a child. In order to be able to help with the family's finances, she joined a Tzu Chi sewing class in her village two years ago. During the training period, she learned sewing and tailoring skills. After that, she found a full-time job with her cousin's help. She works more than 45 hours a week and earns 368 rand [US$47.26], which greatly improves life for her family.

She told us, "Since I got this job, my siblings have been able to go to school and have better food and clothes. And my family can have electricity..."

In the past, she felt she had no goals in life. Now she enjoys her current busy life because it provides her family with a steady income.

In addition to learning sewing skills, Mobongi said she learned about care and mutual help between members of the job-training class. She brings that caring spirit to her work and now shares her own experiences with other young people. She hopes to earn enough money in the future and to open a small garment factory so that she can help unemployed young people in the village to learn skills and to get jobs.

To improve the lives of the local people and help Zulu women become independent, Tzu Chi volunteers set up job training classes. In the past seven years, 524 classes have been set up, and more than 14,000 people have received vocational training.

July 1994 was the coldest winter in South Africa in the past 14 years. Pan Ming-shui [whose story is covered in our Spring 2002 issue] went to help Chuan Mei-hsing, a Tzu Chi volunteer who had just arrived in South Africa. They were going to deliver used clothes from Taiwan to the poor in South Africa. As Pan began visiting various Zulu villages to compile name lists, he saw the poverty and suffering in the villagers' lives.

Pan wanted to help the villagers become more financially independent and weed out the poverty in their lives. He said, "In traditional Zulu custom, men are warriors responsible for protecting the family and women are born to do housework. I discovered that Zulu women loved to sing and dance, so I set up job-training classes that would attract the women, who have nothing to do, to come together to sing and dance and learn working skills at the same time."

In May 1995, Pan set up three sewing classes in Umbumbulu, a one-hour drive from Durban. Some women started learning their skills on sewing machines donated by Tzu Chi and scrap cloth donated by garment factories. Everything began from scratch. He asked Gladys, a local woman who could translate English into Zulu, to accompany him to classes in every village to help teach the other women.

Pan encouraged these women with the experience of the Taiwanese people. "In the past, many Taiwanese also struggled with poverty. Taiwan had to rely on help from other countries, but over time, the people learned to stand on their own. Like us, you can also do it!"

Through word-of-mouth, 524 job-training classes have been set up during the past seven years. More than 14,000 people have received training and many families have improved their lives.

Doris lost her left foot when she was 13 years old. She felt that she was useless and that her neighbors looked down on her. When Tzu Chi set up a job-training class in her village, she was able to earn money and to gain hope for the future.

We heard the clatter of the sewing machines before we even stepped into Doris' home. In her little kitchen were three sewing machines on a dining table. One woman was cutting cloth like a professional and three other women were sewing children's T-shirts. They were happily chatting at the same time.

This was a job-training class. Doris, who learned sewing skills from her mother, is the teacher of the class; she is responsible for cutting the cloth. The other women in the class are responsible for sewing pieces of cloth together to make new garments. On average, four women can produce 15 T-shirts a day.

Doris lost her left foot in a car accident when she was 13 years old. Since then, she had always felt that she was useless and that her neighbors looked down on her. But after Tzu Chi opened a job-training class in her village, she started to have hope for the future. "I regained my confidence and realized the meaning of 'No pain, no gain.'"

Doris' class has 20 students who are all handicapped. Most of them are women neighbors who are learning sewing skills from her. An old man with only one hand was painting a table at the front door. He can now chop wood, saw boards, and nail them into a table. Whenever he completes a table, Doris helps him take the table to sell at a market at the bottom of the hill. The table may not earn him much money, but the skills he learned can support his family; now he doesn't need to go begging on the streets anymore.

Pan told us that in the past, the classes only focused on providing women with sewing skills. But now the new classes, opened in the past two years, have been diversified so that carpentry, farming, and other skills are also taught. The classes aren't limited to women anymore; anyone can take the class.

The products from Doris' class are mostly sold to people in neighboring villages, where they receive high praise. A certain percentage of the net income is allocated to a charity fund every month; the class divides the rest among all the students.

Pan said that the women in the classes had all faced financial difficulties in their families. But after they joined the classes, they started earning money and improving their families' lives. After learning the Tzu Chi spirit of Great Love, they also changed their attitudes towards life.

In 1999, the Ruentex Construction Group of Taiwan donated two containers of cloth to Tzu Chi people in South Africa. The women in the classes sewed the cloth into winter garments that were delivered to needy families by Tzu Chi volunteers.

Dlame is in charge of nine job-training classes, which have even received orders from foreign companies. Dlame received the "Mayor's Award for Excellence: Wealth and Job Creation" last year. The city government plans to provide her classes with computers and equipment to help increase their profits.

It wasn't easy setting up a job-training class in the beginning. Zulu communities are scattered quite far apart, unlike cities with concentrated populations. Pan once had to travel 300 kilometers [186 miles] from Durban for a meeting on job-training classes.

Pan recalled, "Once, in order to visit a class, I had to leave my house at 6:30 in the morning and didn't get home until sometime after 10 that night. I even had three flat tires during the trip."

To visit each class, Pan drives his four-wheel-drive, nine-passenger van over primitive roads that cross vast prairies or rocky plains. Changing conditions on the treacherous roads often trap Pan and Gladys in local communities.

Nevertheless, the difficulties in travel have never stopped Pan from setting up job-training classes for local people. He would rather spend his time this way. "In the past, it was hard to persuade village women to come to the classes," he said with a smile. "But after the classes became well-known, the women became so skillful that some of the classes even received orders from overseas!"

Dlame, who is responsible for nine classes in Pinetown, received the "Mayor's Award for Excellence: Wealth and Job Creation" last year. She is the first female entrepreneur in Durban to receive this award. The city government plans to provide computers and equipment to Dlame's job-training classes in recognition of her contributions to the community and in hopes of helping her classes increase their profits.

In reality, Dlame doesn't have her own factory; she is simply a zealous housewife. In the past, she had a big fight with her husband's first wife [a Zulu man sometimes has more than one wife] and almost caused a war in the family. While Dlame was mired deep in her marriage crisis, she came to know Gladys, who helped her change her attitude completely.

Dlame had an entrepreneurial mind; she helped Tzu Chi set up nine job-training classes in the community. Each classroom is about the size of a car garage, but the 79 students in these classes make up what could be a small garment factory.

Dlame said, "Each class has its own sources of orders for goods. I'm responsible for larger orders and those from overseas. So whenever I get one of these orders, I'll combine the nine classes together and rent a larger place to work on the order."

Last June, Dlame's classes bid against other factories for a certain project. Dlame's classes won with a bid of $144,000 rand [$US18,236]. Seventy percent of the profit was rewarded to students while the remaining 30 percent was used to help senior citizens, the poor, the handicapped, and AIDS patients in the community.

Dlame led us to visit Patricia, 41. She and her family used to live in another area in Durban, but they moved after riots there four years ago. Patricia's class is in a garage that neighbors lent to her for free. Through orders for toys and clothes, her family was able to survive a difficult time in their lives. Before, her home had nothing. But recently she was able to buy furniture, a TV set, and a stereo system. Now she earns enough money to pay for her three children’s education. She also paid off her mortgage last year.

A year ago, Zulu women put on Tzu Chi uniforms consisting of blue shirts and white skirts they had made for themselves. With motherly love, they came out from their job-training classes to help orphans, senior citizens, and AIDS patients in their communities.

　

To help orphans and the elderly, students in the job-training classes go to a local church to distribute relief goods twice a year. Every December, these students weave 50 T-shirts and pants of different sizes as Christmas presents and always give them to orphans and elderly residents. They have never missed a single event.

Pan informed us that more than 90 percent of the classes had achieved so much that now he was encouraging the students to do community work during their spare time. Some students even help villagers lay down water pipes and pave roads.

One student, Sibisi, indicated that in the past those who came to pick up clothes were mostly orphans who had lost their parents in political riots. However, now the orphans who come to pick up clothes have lost their parents because of AIDS. Sibisi worries that more than 50 percent of them will also become AIDS carriers when they grow up.

Statistics from UNAIDS 2002 show that 44 million people in the world are HIV carriers and that Africa has the most serious AIDS infection rate. South Africa has a population of 43 million, of which 4.2 million have AIDS--meaning that one in ten people has the virus. Therefore, 400 people out of the 14,000 students in the job-training centers are devoted to AIDS care and prevention.

Pan stated, "Love affects all; the power of love will spread like a magnet so that more local people will be attracted to helping AIDS patients."

Gladys remarked that many orphans whose parents had died because of AIDS couldn't go to school because no one cared for them. But with Tzu Chi's help, many of them have returned to school.

She further pointed out that AIDS was more serious than most people realized. Many didn't even know that they had the virus. When Gladys was promoting AIDS awareness, she was surprised to discover that one in every two families had the virus.

The volunteers can't provide medicine to the AIDS patients, so they give their love instead. The African volunteers do not have any medical background, but they have motherly love. They put on their blue tops and white skirts that they made themselves. A 29-year-old woman who has had the disease for 12 years stood up to welcome Dlame when she saw her coming to her home. Seven months ago, this female patient could only lie in bed, but Dlame's care and encouragement helped her walk out of her bedroom and brought a smile to her face.

Chief Mthethwa, who comes to the Tzu Chi meeting every month, said, "Tzu Chi not only teaches my people to become more independent, it also teaches me how to care for and love other people."

On December 7, 2002, a group of African volunteers in Tzu Chi uniforms gathered in Durban. Some had driven 300 kilometers [186 miles] to get there; some had ridden buses through the night. Every six months, they spend that much time on the road in order to attend a Tzu Chi meeting. Although the meeting lasts for only a day, they want to learn valuable experiences from other Tzu Chi volunteers in order to benefit their people. Those at the meeting come from all walks of life. They have different beliefs and belong to different political parties, but they are still close like family members.

Gladys shared her experiences in taking care of AIDS patients and doing AIDS prevention work. Dlame brought the good news of her awards. Doris showed new products from her job-training class, and so the events went on. The air in the meeting was full of harmony. Black community volunteers and white staff members from the Durban social work department reached an agreement at the meeting: to promote Great Love in the aboriginal villages. At that moment, blacks and whites united to work together.

Chief M.S. Mthethwa, who was sitting to one side, said seriously, "Tzu Chi not only teaches my people to become independent, it also teaches me how to care for and love other people." He thanked Tzu Chi for teaching him how to lower himself in order to interact with his people; he is not as haughty and distant as before. He had enemies in the past, but now they have become his friends. After becoming involved with other people, he realized how he could share love with others.

Although the chief's village is 300 kilometers from Durban, he still comes every time to attend the volunteers' meeting. He further added, "Tzu Chi is like a school that teaches us how to communicate, love, and bring happiness to other people. I hope to learn something every month so I can bring it back to my people."

After the meeting, the African volunteers all sang and danced on the green grass. Their short lyrics along with their strong voices and chorus formed a beautiful picture.

Different skin colors often draw intangible lines between people, but Tzu Chi volunteers use sincerity to cross the lines and love to pave a bright future ahead.