Hope in South Africa

After living in South Africa for almost a year, I've seen many differences between the culture there and the culture here in America. One of the greatest differences lies within the children. A person can go to a child in the state in which they live and ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and get a quick answer. You'll hear kids say they want to be firefighters, police officers, doctors, and teachers among other things. But in South Africa, that isn't the case.

I lived with a group of Americans and I think we all asked the above question to groups of children at some point in the year. Many times, we received blank stares as an answer to the question. At times, we would get an answer of, "I don't know." On one occasion, a friend heard the words, "I want to be alive," as the answer.

You might be wondering how the latter of those answers makes the list. The answer is because South Africa has been permeated with AIDS. Recent statistics show that more than 25% of South Africans are infected with the disease and that roughly one person dies every minute from it. In turn, the amount of orphans is rising and is expected to reach an upwards of 3.1 million this year. Shocking, right?

It leaves no wonder in my mind that the children wish to be alive. The sad part is that even though AIDS is widespread, the information about the disease does not seem to be. Many children and teenagers don't seem to understand how they can get this and what exactly it is. But, that is starting to change.

I worked with a ministry in South Africa and one of their programs was an AIDS-prevention one. They train local people with a heart to serve God to go to the schools each week and teach the children about AIDS. But, the teaching doesn't just stop there. The teachers also go into many other topics that teenagers face--premarital sex, rape, masturbation, and many more.

I can't say that these topics are always easy for those teachers to discuss with a classroom full of teenagers and young people, but they do it. They are making a difference in the schools and in the communities and it is being noticed by the people that work and live there. There is still a long road ahead, but slowly change is being made and hope is being restored to this country.