Let's get started

Our fourth day began with a our first lecture. Varkey George provided us with an interesting overview about the history of South Africa. Varkey has lived in South Africa for 30 years already and worked in several social entrepreneurship projects. He gave us insights about the causes of poverty in South Africa. Moreover, he pointed out the challenges the country has faced in the past, which are also the roots for today's problems. Furthermore, he presented strategies on how income can be generated for social projects to stimulate the creativity of the students.


Inspiring lecture by Varkey George

The afternoon was spent in the project groups to get more information from the managers, sort the information and discuss further steps. The nutrition team supported the kitchen and the agriculture project to get familiar with the processes, while the fit for life project team had the chance to meet former participants of the projects.


Women Income Generation Project

Group discussions in the afternoon

Nico's support in the kitchen

"Today was a really interesting and productive day for our group "Fit for Life, Fit for Work". We got a lot of input from the project manager yesterday, and it was really interesting to get to know the program, which tackles youth unemployment. So today we tried to put everything into perspective in order to find out where we can contribute to the project and which challenges the project faces. We even got to meet the participants of the programme today. It was great to hear their opinion about the programme or what careers they would like to pursue. That way we could see that the work we do with our managers can potentically have a big impact in practice and thus will hopefully change peoples' lives for the better." (Linda)

On our second day at Etafeni there is a really innovative and productive atmosphere in the group. The students began to work really focused on possible solutions for Etafeni's challenges. You could still feel the positives vibes in the evening at several working sessions in the hostel.




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Phalaborwa and Kruger National Park

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