Understanding both a difficult past and hopeful future
By Stephanie
Eye-opening. Educational. Adventure. Heart-breaking. Culture. New friends and experiences. Understanding both a difficult past and hopeful future. It is impossible to summarize our South Africa field seminar in just one short phrase. As I travel home I am just now starting to understand and reflect on the many emotions and experiences that I encountered over the last week, and I have no doubt these thoughts will stay with me for a long time to come.
South Africa is a country with many diverse resources and companies, friendly people, and natural beauty which we got to experience over the course of our week. Prior to the trip, we talked a lot about the country’s divided past and Apartheid. But the devastating effects become so much more real when you are actually standing in the Apartheid museum, overwhelmed by the photographs and narratives from real people who lived through it. We were told by many people that South Africa today is a unified nation that has “freedom of choice”, but it is hard to fully believe that after witnessing the stark wealth disparities between certain neighborhoods and populations within South Africa. For example, the differences between the wealthy business-centered neighborhood where our hotel was located compared to Soweto, a neighborhood that in many ways looks the same today as the photographs from Apartheid, is quite shocking. I think a key takeaway for me around this topic is that the people of South Africa today are hopeful and very much aware of the importance of the past, but there is still so much to be done in terms of healing, unifying neighborhoods, and helping those struggling in poverty.
I was so impressed with all of our business visits and felt as though I gained important insights from each one. Since I am passionate about health care, I especially was fascinated with our visits to the World Health Organization, Wits RHI, and Eaton Electric. Our visit to WHO really put into perspective the structural challenges facing health care in South Africa. Only 10% of the population can afford to access private health care services, and at the same time the public services are overcrowded, underfunded, and under-resourced. It became quite clear that health outcomes and quality of care are going to differ based on whether an individual can access public vs. private services. South Africa is in the process of trying to implement national health insurance to better enable its citizens to access quality care, but the legislation excludes migrants which is increasingly a predominant portion of the population. We also talked in length at WHO and Wits RHI about the challenges of tuberculosis and HIV. Take HIV for example. There are currently 7 million people living in South Africa with HIV/AIDs and it predominantly affects vulnerable populations such as those living in poverty, those with less education, and sex workers. The statistics of the reality of the situation were hard to fathom at times, but it was also so inspiring to see the important and innovative work being undertaken by health organizations such as WHO and Wits RHI. Wits RHI is currently in the pilot process for self-testing HIV kits to be used by vulnerable populations, with the goal of increasing awareness rates of HIV-status and minimizing the spread of HIV. I found this example so fascinating because this project includes many entrepreneurial/innovative elements that you expect to find at a standard for-profit initiative, demonstrating that these types of tactics can have just as much potential in the social impact space. I think these social impact organizations can be better at partnering with private sector companies to further elevate their initiatives, and I am very interested to see how this plays out in the future.
I didn’t expect to find our visit to Eaton Electric all that interesting. I admit I know very little about energy/electricity and this has never really peaked my interest before. But surprisingly, this ended up being one of the most insightful company visits for me because of the way they framed the electricity problem in South Africa as a health problem. I had never thought about the problem this way before. Electricity impacts health and social determinants of health in many ways – such as families being able to cook healthy foods without a dangerous open fire, clinics/hospitals being able to refrigerate stocks of blood and important vaccines, students being able to study and read at night, and communities being able to power critical pumps needed to filter safe water. It was eye-opening just how stark the electricity problem is throughout Africa and how Eaton, a traditional for-profit company, is playing a critical role to solve this societal problem. Two-thirds of Sub-Saharan Africa are without power and compared to other countries in the continent, South Africa actually fares pretty well. South Africa produces 50,000 megawatts of electricity, which is 80% of the electricity generation for the whole continent. But this is still substantially low compared to other nations; to put it in perspective, California alone produces 80,000 megawatts. I found these numbers staggering. And even for communities that do have access to electricity, load-shedding is a constant and very real challenge. While we were traveling throughout Johannesburg there were multiple times when the electricity was out and the traffic lights were non-functioning, resulting in increased traffic congestion. And after our field seminar, I spent a few days in Cape Town which is currently experiencing a heightened load-shedding period. For three days in a row, there were daily power outages from 10-12, 2-4, and 8-10. I felt the inconvenience impacts just from these couple of days, so it is easy to see how disruptive this must be for communities on a long-term basis, not to mention the immediate disadvantages it places on those who do not have access to electricity at all.
Our field seminar in South Africa was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We had lots of fun meeting and getting to know each other, trying new foods, exploring new areas, networking with companies, and seeing incredible natural beauty. But the powerful reflections and insights we will take away from this trip, both positive and disheartening, made it even more worthwhile. I think we are all walking away with unique takeaways that made us think differently about something, and that we will take back to our respective future careers.