South Africa (Spring 2019)

It always seems impossible until it’s done

By Aseem

It is clear that the country has a great deal of work ahead to address these problems. But when meeting with members of these varied organizations working in renewable energy, public health, and impact investing, I am struck by feelings of admiration and reverence for the difficult work they are doing. It is a testament to the commitment and belief that as Nelson Mandela put it “It always seems impossible until it's done.”

The lights are out again. It’s 8pm in Capetown and the load shedding has begun. As I look down at the waves breaking in Camps Bay, Capetown, I am in awe of the incredible beauty of this country, my experiences thus far in Johannesburg and Capetown, and also reminded of the systematic problems affecting everyday life.

Before going to Capetown, our social impact seminar took place visiting companies and organizations primarily in Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria. I was most intrigued by and interested in the work of Mandate Molefi: a diversity & inclusion human resources consulting firm. Since I will be joining IBM this summer as an HR Leadership Development Intern, I was most interested in hearing how Nene Molefi (Mandate Molefi founder) and her team worked on issues related to racial and gender equity in the workplace and schools. I was most impressed by Nene’s journey taking over the company and her balance towards bringing a personal/empathetic approach towards these difficult issues as well as using quantifiable and measurable tools to assess how companies progress on these issues. Additionally, I loved how passionately she spoke about working with schools and young people in Johannesburg and how they were the foundation and basis for modeling her and her team’s work for older people in the workplace. Lastly, I enjoyed learning about Mandate Molefi’s innovative approaches to understanding/observing diversity and inclusion practices in group settings through a board game that the company created. Who would have thought that D&I tools plus the Monopoly board game could ever provide such insights? As a person of color and someone who identifies as gay, I look forward to keeping in touch with Ms. Molefi and her team and how her company’s work could be implemented here in the US and how it could help me better understand diversity and inclusion on my own career path.

On the same day that we visited Mandate Molefi, our group visited the Apartheid Museum. As non-company visits went, I was most deeply affected by this museum. The museum did a superb job to help me and my fellow students better understand just how extensive and over-reaching the apartheid truly and how it’s legacy lives on in the country. As someone studying International Relations as well as doing my MBA, I was disturbed to learn how the South African army attacked sovereign nations (Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, to name a few) in an effort to keep anti-apartheid activists silent. Additionally, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission videos were incredibly moving. After seeing the videos, I could not and still cannot fathom how families and victims of Apartheid had the strength to confront their oppressors. Our visit also spurred a great deal of conversation around other systems of oppression with my classmates and Professor Flammer concerning Jim Crow and Nazi Germany. I am truly forever grateful for the opportunity to visit this esteemed institution and for the personal self introspection it has allowed.

Additionally, my team’s consulting project with the NEPAD Business Foundation took place on Wednesday. After several weeks of early scheduled phone calls, team meetings, and group consultations, we were finally ready to present our work to our client. Our project revolved around how to expand their public partnership trainings to more consumers and through the African Union. The meeting and presentation turned out to be more of an ongoing conversation and our client seemed most pleased with our recommendation to digitize their content in order to access a broader audience. Of course there will be more information to come, as we get closer to our final presentation.

After finishing off our seminar, our group segmented off and many of us went to Capetown to spend a few days. Stating that Capetown is incredibly gorgeous would be a gross understatement. I was entranced by the bucolic beauty surrounding sights such as the Cape of Good Hope, Table Mountain, and the lush vineyards in Stellenbosch. However, like Johannesburg, the walls were high fenced with electric and barbed wiring. The wealth and sought after real estate was almost exclusively white owned. And to top it off electricity load shedding was frequent. It is clear that the country has a great deal of work ahead to address these problems. But when meeting with members of these varied organizations working in renewable energy, public health, and impact investing, I am struck by feelings of admiration and reverence for the difficult work they are doing. It is a testament to the commitment and belief that as Nelson Mandela put it “It always seems impossible until it's done.” I look forward to taking this experience with me as I progress at Questrom and my career.

Can the real South Africa please stand up?

By Naly

This has been a powerful experience that has strengthened my passion to create sustainable impact in communities by helping others to recognize and develop their gifts and talents.

This visit to South Africa has been filled with great experiences that have really brought me a deeper understanding of the South African culture and all that it represents. I went into this trip with an unabashed excitement about the people I would meet and how social impact would be having a tangible effect in the community. It was evident to me after visiting just a few businesses, that there is a strong commitment to growth and development. It felt as if empowering the South African community was the driver to keep the businesses moving forward. From learning the mechanics of impact investing through the lens of the Secha Capital investment firm, understanding the very real health coverage obstacles from the World Health Organization, processing Mandate Molefi’s framework to address social inequities in the workforce, absorbing the passion from Room to Read’s efforts in equipping the next generation, to envisioning Eaton’s goals in creating better energy opportunities, change has clearly been made a priority in the South African business climate. It was a great privilege to learn from professionals on the ground working towards creating a sustainable path of impact for their communities.

In visiting the different townships however, it seems like this movement towards change has been stalled. Despite the advancements in their business climate there is also a high unemployment rate within the South African community and this seemed very evident in the townships. From Soweto, Langa, to Gugulethu these townships still bear the residue of the past by the makeshift tin shacks that also highlight the division of these areas from the bigger cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town. As I walked through some of these areas, I experienced a deep sadness at seeing the conditions that people were living in. I thought to myself this isn’t a matter of people having the “freedom to choose” to live in an area they are comfortable with (as suggested by our tour guide for the week), but that it was more about post-apartheid change not reaching all areas of their communities. Load-shedding is another problematic issue that is faced by people in the townships as well. This is when Eskom, the SA power utility company, in an attempt to avoid national blackouts, schedules two hour intervals during the day in which the electricity will be turned off.  As it is also possible for all power to go out more than once per day, this can be a heavy blow to a family who is already living on a limited income. Granted the load shedding issue is widespread and affects the bigger cities as well, but the back generators used by the bigger businesses are not normally found in the townships. From what I gleaned from experiencing this while being in a township when it has happened, the community will just make do with the situation and see it as a part of regular life.  

It really almost seemed like we were visiting two completely different worlds. Johannesburg provided us a views of nice housed with big security walls, there were shopping malls and restaurants with security guards around every turn. We, as visitors, were constantly reminded not to go out alone at night and avoid being out late, to travel in groups,  and to make sure we didn’t have valuables out on display. It was a level of fear-mongering that I haven’t been subjected to in a while personally and I took it all in with stride. In the townships it was just a different vibe overall. People were just sitting around on the street corners, chatting with each other and just watching us walk through. There were vendors with little tables out on the streets bustling with an entrepreneurial spirit to put a handmade craft in your hand. I remember a vendor saying to me “My sister, something to remember us by” as he waved his hand carved goods towards me. Despite the fact that I didn’t purchase anything, I remember later thinking how great his sales skills were  in our short encounter and wondered if the opportunity had ever presented itself for him to grow his talent and build a career from his talent.

During the week I had an opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with a local about this stark difference between the two areas and he clearly laid out the idea that apartheid was not really a thing of the past for people living in these townships. He noted that the people may not be bound to these areas, but that they are still suffering injustices to this day and that it would be a lot more work before all of the South African community was completely free. We discussed the concept of perspective and mindset and he eluded to the fact that many don’t see themselves as the next generation of change. For me this is where the social impact element comes into play. This has been a powerful experience that has strengthened my passion to create sustainable impact in communities by helping others to recognize and develop their gifts and talents. I know that this trip is the first of many to come and I look forward to what future holds!

Racism is alive in South Africa

By Kathryn

[I]t proved to me the way that outward actions and conscious thoughts don’t always match internalized ideas of “other.”

I hadn’t expected the racism. In hindsight, it seems obvious – apartheid was not that long ago, only officially ending in 1994. Many of the people living in South Africa today have lived through apartheid.

And recent years have shown us the prevalence of racism in the United States. So again, I’m not sure why I was surprised. But I was.

Our tour guide, an older white woman who was a self-proclaimed “liberal” clearly held internalized racist views that had not ended when the government ended apartheid. Again, the fact that the end of racist laws does not magically end the racist lens through which people were taught to view the world, shouldn’t be a surprise. And yet, for some reason it was.

The guide made a point of letting us know that in this post-apartheid era, people had the freedom to choose where to live. During apartheid, the government forcibly removed the people they classified as “black” - the South African government used the labels “black,” “coloured,” and “white” to describe its citizens - from their homes within the cities, relocating them to the outskirts, and in some cases, across the entire country. Once apartheid ended, when people had the “freedom of choice” once again, many people moved out of these poor townships. Our guide explained to us that some people then moved back to the poor shanty towns because they missed their former way of life – they missed living in close physical proximity to their neighbors, where it was nice to live with friends and “borrow sugar whenever you’d like.” Some white people even moved out there, she told us.

Now, this argument is a common one, it seems, for the wealthy and privileged to rationalize the living situations of those in poverty. Many slave owners in America used to tell themselves that their slaves preferred slavery to freedom. Living in my bubble of liberal Boston, I’ve never had someone tell me that party line with a straight face.

At the professor’s request, the guide let us know she was going to share a little bit of her personal experience with apartheid. The ensuing story let us know that her daughter, living in England, made a special point of flying back to Johannesburg for the memorial service of Nelson Mandela. As soon as the young woman landed in the city, she went to the family home to pick up their “domestic helper,” and then they both visited the Mandela home with flowers. The president meant that much to her.

I’m sure you can sense my skepticism. While I don’t doubt that Nelson Mandela does mean a lot to the family, it proved to me the way that outward actions and conscious thoughts don’t always match internalized ideas of “other.” It reminded me of the rationalization that often accompanies acceptance of the status quo.

Now, these are two of the tamer anecdotes from the week, but serve as a starting place for discussion.

In many ways, I do think racism is discussed in South Africa more bluntly and more actively than it is in the United States, and this can be a positive thing. In the US, we’ve only just come to acknowledge, as a nation, our internalized fear of otherness and how it to affects our day-to-day interactions. We all have a lot of work to do.

Catch-22

By Colin

Allowing everyone a chance to learn necessary skills for work, earn an income and provide for their family does not subtract from your ability to do the same. In fact, often times it allows for you to increase your capacity to do so.

Browsing a local bookstore I was on a quest to find a few good books which would hold my attention throughout the multiple flights, layovers and bus journeys that awaited me during the upcoming trip to South Africa. Economics, psychology, history were the sections I once again found myself drawn to but my girlfriend had other ideas. On her own quest to share her love of fiction books with me she maneuvered us to the fiction section and grabbed Catch-22 off the shelf.

Catch-22 was written in the 1960’s about the absurdity of World War II. World War II and psychology were topics I gravitate towards so I figured what the hell, why not. I paired the book with a few others directly related to South African history and socio-economic challenges. I was certain the others would be more relevant and useful on this trip. I was wrong.

A catch-22 is defined as “a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.” South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, is a land built on these dilemmas. From the use of resources, to the layout of the city, to the system of governance catch-22’s present themselves.

It is easy to view Apartheid as a system of one group oppressing another. In reality it was more complex than that. The white, European ruling class didn’t have the ability to dominate the rest of the population despite superior technology, weapons and wealth because they were vastly outnumbered. Apartheid was built on this ruling class’ ability to sow dissent and disunion between the other groups. They created groups for Indians, Blacks and Coloreds. These groups represented different tiers of citizenship in South Africa. Coloreds were given preferential treatment compared to the Blacks. Over time it was even possible to pass from Colored to White, but never Black to White. This treatment allowed one group to have a false sense of power and pride over another.

The catch-22 here is that all other groups were stronger together than apart. Progress was nonexistent without cooperation. The system was set up to entice people to strive for promotion from one group to another. In reality it wasn’t the people who needed promotion from one another, but the system that needed promotion to a humane society. Mandela was one of many who was able to see this, and his ability to unite people rather than divide them helped to end this difficult problem through mutual dependence on a South Africa for all.

Still, South Africa is not a perfect society, free from its past. Scars remain to remind us of the journey. Often times we heard with the fall of Apartheid people are free to choose where they would like to live. In Catch-22 you are free to ask for your release from the army, but it is only granted if you are crazy. You are crazy to want to fly more missions, and sane if you want to go home. Therefore you can never ask to be sent home and actually be sent home, but if you never ask you can never go home either. In so many words, this is the housing situation in South Africa.

Yes it is true you can choose to live anywhere you’d like in South Africa. People are no longer constrained by racial zoning. However, at the end of Apartheid it was not a mad scramble where you could claim any home as your own as long as you were the first to race inside. Apartheid ended but the gulf of opportunity and ability remained. White flight hit Johannesburg as whites chose to live in Cape Town. Others didn’t choose but were allowed to move into the struggling city of Johannesburg because prices plummeted with the exodus of capital. South Africans would love to live wherever they want in their own country but to do so requires wealth and to have wealth requires education and skills which historically have only been provided to people in certain neighborhoods. To choose to live where you want in South Africa requires you to be from a certain neighborhood you wouldn’t choose to leave for another.

How is it possible a country of such great wealth can have so many of its citizens living in abstract poverty? How is it possible to have exhausted coal mines for domestic use but still have years’ worth of reserves for exportation? How is it possible for a government so recently built for the people, by the people, to steal from the people?

South Africa has some of the richest gold, diamond and coal mines in the world. South Africa has shown the desire to change the course of its history and change their society. South Africa remains a catch-22. South Africa will remain a divided country despite the work of its community leaders as long as these mutually dependent conditions remain.

Certain groups want to maintain their status, their wealth, their power over others. Unfortunately, they do not realize that a society as a whole benefits when conditions are mutually beneficial. Allowing everyone a chance to learn necessary skills for work, earn an income and provide for their family does not subtract from your ability to do the same. In fact, often times it allows for you to increase your capacity to do so. This is the Catch-22 of South Africa. Unless South Africa is willing to allow all citizens access to the country South Africa will never be able to allow its citizens access to its potential.

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.