In This House, We do NOT Stan Poverty Tourism
Alright everyone, day three in Johannesburg! I started my day basically the same as my day before: with a super bomb breakfast consisting of hash browns, bacon, and fruit, and a quick debrief before our first visit of the day.
Our whole class hopped in our bus, and our amazing driver, Percy (who is my new king), drove us over to GIBS: The Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria. We were there to meet with Tash Ishmael, CEO of South Africa’s YES Program.
Let me tell you here, Tash Ishmael is a BADASS, and I want to be her when I grow up. She started out as a dentist and eventually found her path to business and government, first teaching at GIBS and then becoming the CEO of the YES Program, a program that addresses the youth unemployment in South Africa.
Her talk to us was incredibly inspirational, and I took three whole pages of notes because I didn’t want to miss a single thing she said. She taught us that 56% of South African young people don’t have diplomas. How do you enter the labor force when there’s nothing to measure your skill?
Her program has been revolutionizing and has created 15000 new jobs in 5 months! That alone was enough to see that one person can truly make an impact in the human rights and business sector, and she was doing just that.
After she walked us through a very extensive overview of her program and how it affects South African citizens, we were ready to make our way to Diepsloot.
If you don’t know anything about Diepsloot, let me just give you a quick overview. It’s one of Johannesburg’s townships and is actually an Afrikaans word for “deep ditch.” It’s an incredibly poor area of South Africa and is infamous for crime, nonexistent sanitation, and a low level of life.
Our professor had briefed us before we went on our way to Diepsloot and talked to us about how we are NOT poverty tourists. Poverty tourism is a type of tourism that involves financially privileged tourists visiting impoverished communities for the sole purpose of witnessing poverty firsthand. It is also known as ghetto or slum tourism, poorism, and reality tourism, and it is an ISSUE.
National Geographic wrote a really good article about it, and I highly recommend you read it here.
Like our professor said, we were there to learn about how these communities function in lower inequality areas so we could apply the things we learned as we enter the corporate world, not just take pictures of places and be like lol yeah I visited a poor place and then never think about it again.
I went into Diepsloot 100% with that mentality. I was not there to just witness poverty, I was there to be able to see the things I want to change as a professional in the future.
The drive from GIBS to Diepsloot took about 40 minutes. For the first 30 or so minutes, everything outside my window looked like the Johannesburg I had known. There were car dealerships everywhere, fenced in nice houses, and a ton of infrastructure for the community to access.
And then all of a sudden we took one turn, and it was like we had entered a new world. The roads were smaller and made of dirt and sand, the houses were clearly made out of just scrap material, and there was nothing familiar in sight.
The first thing we did once we got off our taxis was take a quick tour through Diepsloot. We walked through the town, and our guide pointed out the singular street sign that existed in all of Diepsloot.
After doing a quick walk through, our class went to go visit an NGO (non-governmental organization) named Green Door that was located in the the area. It is currently run by a man named Brown Lekekela, and he truly is trying his best to make the most out of his limited resources and serve as an abuse shelter.
Mr. Brown’s space was really small and had only one real bedroom with two twin beds pushed together. He explained to us that he didn’t have the resources to house more people even though he really wanted to.
But not only does he house people who are suffering from abusive homes or relationships, but he also helps them seek out resources that can better their situations. It was incredibly admirable and moving to see this man do all that he could to help his community around him, even though himself didn’t have much to work with in the start.
If you want to donate to Mr. Brown’s NGO, his PayPal is brownlekekela@gmail.com. Anything truly helps. Even if you don’t think you have the means to donate, just remember that 1 US dollar is equivalent to 14.40 Rand so even just one dollar can do so much. He even has a website!
After visiting the NGO, our class headed out to visit three different places in Diepsloot. The first place we went to visit was a small business on the corner of the street that sold things from food to minutes on the phone.
After we learned about his business, we said our goodbyes and went to visit a different place. Instead of visiting a business, we went to visit a member of the community.
Her name was Jeanette, and she had lived in Diepsloot her whole life. She told us about how proud she was to be a grandmother and how she had never been farther than south of Johannesburg. It was really warm to hear her talk about her community and how content she was where she is.
Our next stop in Diepsloot was another business, a supplier of goods to other stores in the community. It was really interesting to see where these small businesses got their goods!
After our stop at the supplier store, our class headed for a lunch in Diepsloot. It was a nice little break because I think we were all starting to hit a wall, whether it was jet lag or just exhaustion. We ate super yummy South African food and then headed back to GIBS to debrief our visit.
After a very intense and in-depth conversation about the things we saw and the people we talked to in Diepsloot, we headed back to our hotel in Hyde Park. The whole drive back all I could think about was how privileged I truly was.
We got back to our hotel, and after another debrief (yes, we debrief like 5 times a day), my friend Sam and I decided to head out to dinner. Our hotel in Jo-Burg is also connected to a mall with a bunch of different food places, and we decided to hit up this Parisian restaurant called Tashas Le Parc.
I ordered mini sliders and Sam ordered a cute little salad. We were able to just decompress after a pretty heavy day and just talk between the two of us. Sometimes it’s nice to break away from the big group and have a little friendship moment!
Before we left the restaurant, Sam and I decided to treat ourselves to the dessert bar and order macarons and cheesecake to go. We parted ways at the hotel, and I headed to my room to take a bubble bath, eat my fat piece of cheesecake, and watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. Honestly, best idea of the night.
That’s a wrap in day three in South Africa! I hope you all are enjoying my travel adventures because I know I definitely love writing them. Talk to you all soon.