Creating The Dream

May 2008
 

   

An immediate and natural reaction to the incredible poverty in the townships of South Africa is to look for ways to meet the basic survival needs of people there. When those fortunate enough to have work (a small minority) bring home little more than US $10 after a full day and a long commute, and manage to feed an entire family on that, the pressing material needs are obvious.

In contrast, the value of work such as Lindwall Releasing, addressing the emotional wellbeing and spiritual needs of people, is at first perhaps not so immediately clear. Our experience over the last two years has shown us that Releasing is as powerful and relevant for people under such circumstances as for those living in relatively better material circumstances. We have recently been working with adults and youth in an informal settlement in Philippi, near Cape Town, and seen dramatic results in applying our work in their lives.

"Mama" Constance Thiyeka had collected a group of youth and local residents around her shack, and provided basic support, including having a group of twenty to thirty youth meeting in her shack after school almost every day. They would practice singing and drama as they squeezed into the small space.
 

In addition to giving workshops and sessions on Releasing with them, we guided them in sharing and expressing their dreams, prioritizing them, and finding those which were individual and which applied to the whole group.

Already in the first session, it became clear that the highest priority they all shared was to have a group meeting space of their own. We began to list its ideal characteristics, to visualize it already there, and to feel how it would be to have just such a space.

   
We were surprised that as the "Mbono" (Xhosa for "Vision") list developed, these teenagers included priorities such as sharing their meeting space with the whole community, and activities such as having a soup kitchen to support the sick and elderly.
   

The very next day, Mama Thiyeka's neighbor came to see her and offered to donate the space that her shack was built on to the youth if they would help her carry the building materials to a vacant lot a few hundred yards away so that she could rebuild it there!

   
   
   
Blessing the new space ...
   
... and digging the foundations
   

We look forward to updating you on the progress of this project.

Stephen Marcus and Barbara Kroll
 

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