Egoli

In order to fulfill the community development requirement of the course that we took this summer, our group spent our last week in Egoli, installing lights for a community that has no electricity. However, because it does not take nineteen people to install a light, our group was also able to spend a lot of time hanging out with kids, picking up trash, organizing their small library, and chatting with some of the local teenagers. We were able to raise over $600, and consequently installed 6 lights. Though that may not seem like a lot for a community of over 2,500 we were assured that it would make a great impact on the safety and livelihood of the people. One of the biggest and most immediate issues that they face is that their walks to the bathroom at night are not safe. Women are routinely raped and taken advantage of, and mothers do not feel comfortable letting their children out at night to walk around. Obviously a lot of problems arise from those two issues, and though light is not the end-all solution, it will certainly serve as a starting point to solving the many issues that lie before that small community.

On behalf of our group, I think that I can say we all thoroughly enjoyed our time in Egoli. Whether we were blowing up glove balloons for small children, fishing dirty diapers out of mud puddles, organizing bookshelves, or simply passing out orange slices to the community we all found that there was some small task that we could do that had the potential to positively influence the people of Egoli. Though our time there was limited, we certainly did our best to produce fruitful labor. We saw how the people live. We shared in their everyday living, and we did our best to show just a little bit of love and compassion to some beautiful people who are certainly in need of a little care and affection.