Social Responsibility and Refilwe

Although Apartheid ended in South Africa 15 years ago, there is still much damage to be repaired. Systematic oppression and forced inequality between white and black people for almost a century created a plethora of social problems that they are now trying to rectify through development initiatives.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange lists registered companies’ Social Responsibility Index as a means of determining which companies are contributing responsibly to community development within the area.This feature is designed to force companies to participate in eradicating the inequality and poverty that was created during Apartheid. Refilwe, being a community development project that focuses on the education and empowerment of black people, is very eligible to receive the benefits of this program.

One company that contributes towards Refilwe’s development efforts organized a soccer match on Friday afternoon, complete with icecream, tshirts, dump trucks and a professional photographer. The only thing that was strange about it was that they didn't send a soccer team. So all of Refilwe had the afternoon off, went out to our soccer field and watched two teams of the people we know play each other while the professional photographer took cute photos of the kids eating ice cream. The men all had a great time beating each other (though if anyone knew the final score I didn't hear about it!) and the women had a great time girl-gabbing on the side lines.

The Social Responsibility Index is a seemingly clever way for the government to not have to fund every little development initiative and in theory allows them to focus on bigger picture infrastructure instead of micromanaging development on the ground level. It certainly helps Refilwe that there are laws and policies in place that enable them access to funding. The down side to it is that there seems to be a bit of a ‘rich white giving to poor black’ mentality; while Refilwe gives and encourages many opportunities for the companies that donate their funds, there is still the sense that what is happening is not true, participatory development. It comes down to the age old question of whether giving time or giving money is better when trying to fix social problems. There is no easy answer to that, but in this context the separation that has existed in South Africa is not going to be healed just through money. The problems here have been caused, reinforced and entrenched because of the past actions of a powerful few. Healing needs to take place socially, not just in developing poor communities, but also in developing understanding, relationship and forgiveness between social groups.

The school holidays have just begun for us, so this week and next I hope to get involved a bit with the projects that Cliff and Amanda work with and see what they get up to during their days. I also just posted some pictures in a Facebook Album so feel free to check that out too!