Ubunye1

Ubunye - The Power of Unity

"Ubunye" - meaning 'the Power of Unity' - represents the link between Chaucer Business & Enterprise College in Sheffield and Mboniselo School in the Motherwell Township close to Port Elizabeth in South Africa.
Following a visit by a group of girls from Chaucer to Port Elizabeth with Face Africa in 2009, the seed was sown for a long-term partnership between Chaucer (and its wider community of Parsons Cross in Sheffield) and the cluster of primary schools in Port Elizabeth - managed by Face Africa's local community-partner the Calabash Trust.
A first expedition was planned for February 2011, and when the link was launched to the school a number of interested students and staff got involved. They worked tirelessly for 18 months to raise enough money to fund the project and expedition to South Africa. In so doing, they spread the concept of the link more broadly in their own community – bringing in feeder primary schools and Sheffield Hallam University as well as the local Methodist Church and even Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.
Meanwhile in South Africa, we worked with Calabash to pinpoint an appropriate link school for Chaucer and Mboniselo in Motherwell came to the fore. Head teacher Themba Hopa identified two issues within the school that needed addressing: pupil nutrition and parental involvement. The project concept that was born was the creation of a vegetable garden in the school grounds, combined with water harvesting from the extensive roofs of the school buildings to irrigate it. The idea was to create an initial garden for the school, with plenty of room to expand. This would allow the school to grow their own vegetables. At the same time to encourage parents to come and create a small allotment for themselves to grow food for their own family, thereby also bringing them into the school grounds.
On the 19th February 2011, 16 students and 5 adults embarked on a life changing experience. Tim’s “Leader Report” below will give you more details of the trip itself, but following a great deal of hard work and lots of fun the project was completed and we celebrated together, Parsons Cross and Motherwell, the real “Power of Unity”.

Additional Information

Leader Report - Tim Ellis

The Ubunye link has special meaning for me. When, as a company, we decided to take the plunge into school linking and expeditions, we didn’t quite know whether anyone would go for the concept. I still remember sitting in a meeting room in Chaucer in mid 2009, and Gill & Lindy sitting across the table telling me that they wanted to create a link with Port Elizabeth (PE) and build up to an expedition in February 2011. It was the first validation of that decision and I shall always hold the memory.
Sitting in our Cape Town office now in March 2011, following two amazing weeks with the Ubunye group, I wish to reflect on the experience from my point of view as leader of the group while they were in South Africa.
The team arrived in Cape Town on a breezy sunny morning, looking resplendent in their uniform Ubunye tops. We loaded the coach with their excess baggage (football boots and other donated items for the community in PE) and headed to the lodge in town. That afternoon we took the cable car up Table Mountain, and hiked for two hours to Maclears Beacon, the highest point. This was my first view of the guys in action, and also the first opportunity to chat to them. Most coped admirably, even scrambling up the beacon for a photo opportunity on the top. One or two were feeling the sharp switch from ‘snow-on-the-ground’ in Sheffield to the hot temperatures of a Cape Town summer’s day.
The following morning we visited Robben Island, a chance for the group to experience first hand the suffering imposed on political prisoners under the Apartheid system – and to feel for the first time history that they had read in books and listened to me babbling on about the previous evening. Our guide was an ex-political prisoner who had been sent to Robben Island as a teenager following his involvement in the student uprisings in 1976 – protesting against being taught in a language they did not understand. In the afternoon we took the team to Cape Point where everyone hiked up in a stiff breeze to the lighthouse and then most made it on to the Cape of Good Hope for a group photo. On the way back we stopped in at Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony.
Leaving Cape Town, we made the long drive to the Tsitsikamma National Park on South Africa’s ‘Garden Route’. It was the first night under canvas, so following a demonstration the guys set to work putting up their tents. We were camping within metres of the crashing Indian Ocean, so our first night on the road was spent around the campfire staring at the stars and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of the sea. The following day was one to explore the forest and coastal areas of the park. In the morning we joined up with Stormsriver Adventures, a locally based social enterprise running canopy tours through the forest and very involved in local community development. In the course of the fun and informative tour, Harry managed to conquer his fear of heights so successfully that by the end he was trying to find ever higher points to lean over and stare out the ground! In the afternoon we hiked as a group up the Storms River to the suspension bridge that crosses it. On the others side we found a beach and competed skimming stones across the waves. It was a day where the team bonds began to deepen and we talked about our imminent arrival in Port Elizabeth and the work to come.
Arriving in PE signalled the start of the main focus of the expedition. Paul from the Calabash Trust came to the camp to speak to the group together with Themba Hopa, the headmaster of Mboniselo Primary School. He spoke about what had happened up to this point and what to expect over the next few days. The key values of Respect, Openness and Integrity were identified as being pivotal to the experience. Reactions to this from the group mingled excitement with anticipation and a feeling of needing to live up to expectation.
Earlier in the afternoon, we had a timely visit from Miyere – a Maasai warrior who had walked from Kenya to Cape Town and was now setting off back to North Africa – to raise awareness for the plight of his people in Kenya. Miyere’s message was that we are all individuals, each of whom has a journey to follow on this earth. He encouraged us to be true to ourselves and our journey, and echoed Paul’s message of Integrity and Respect. Read more at www.maasaiwarrior.com.
Friday began with an orientation tour of PE and the townships. We arrived at Mboniselo in the early afternoon to find a much bigger welcome than any of us had anticipated. The school had erected a marquee in the grounds and there were hundreds of people present: students, staff, parents and many many people from the Motherwell community. Mr Hopa gave an official welcome and many other representatives from the school and community also spoke. There was much singing, quite a bit of dancing and some food to finish off. We toured the site of the garden, and everyone felt overwhelmed by the event. It was wonderful to see the Chaucer students really embrace the occasion and respond to the call to be ‘open’. They had their faces painted, they sang and danced and really got into the spirit of the link. This is unusual to see so early on and I think reflects incredibly well on the individuals concerned.
The following day was the start of work proper. Paul and I looked on in wonderment as the great tide of enthusiasm that had been spawned by the previous day’s events was let loose on the garden area. The initial mission was to clear: to remove weeds, rocks and turn over the earth so that we could create planting beds. There must have been 50 children from Mboniselo (later dubbed the school’s ‘environmental warriors’) together with the Ubunye group and quite a number of parents from the community which was gratifying to see. The aim of this day was to ride the enthusiasm and work together, so we didn’t worry too much about some inefficiencies here and there.
Work finished early and we all gathered at the football pitch to watch Mboniselo take on Chaucer, where home advantage saw the Mboniselo team prevail 3-1. The girls from Chaucer were more successful, and several goals from Katie saw them to a comfortable win. The singing and chanting continued from the sidelines and the games continued until late in the afternoon. I don’t think anyone had expected to feel so welcomed and so integrated with their hosts so quickly. It really was wonderful to see.
Sunday was a day out at Amakhala Game Reserve, and the Ubunye group was joined by a sizeable contingent of students and staff from Mboniselo. It was an extremely hot day, but the groups managed to soldier through the heat and learn about conservation of wildlife and wild areas as well as experience a game drive through the reserve. Animals seen ranged from Elephant to Eland, and Kudu to Zebra. At the end of the day we returned to our camp by the sea in need of a good swim to cool off.
The next three days were all hard work at the school. Very hard work in fact. Harder than any of us had predicted. The presence of so many rocks in the soil, including some absolute monsters that needed a jack-hammer to break them, meant that work was slow and difficult. The group probably moved 2-3 tonnes of rock over the course of the week – not insignificant! However as the days passed, the garden began to take shape. Mrs Maphalala and Mr Jonono were the two teachers from the school to have attended training from WESSA on permaculture, and they took the lead on the design of the beds: assisted by a group from Chaucer. It was decided that a large “C + M” form the centre of the garden – all shapes conducive to permaculture gardening. Weeds were pulled, rocks were carted away, earth was turned over, and more rocks were discovered. By the end of Wednesday, the beds had been dug and cleared. The perimeter hedge of Spekboom had been planted and the manure and compost had arrived to prepare the beds with. In the mean time, Jacques and his team had built stands for the water tanks and fitted downpipes from the roof to the tanks ready to catch the rain.
Thursday dawned: our final day in the school. The plan was to plant the seedlings in the beds, plant the 4 trees that had been selected, and have a final celebration with Mboniselo. We awoke to light rain. This was quite something as the region is in the middle of suffering a severe drought, with no proper rain for a long time. However on this day, just when the garden needed a good soaking to bed in around the seedlings, the rain came. It was a poignant moment, looking back.
As the seedlings and trees were planted, a growing sense of satisfaction was evident from all involved. When we gathered that afternoon for the farewell ceremony, many people spoke about the shared experiences and how powerful they had been. They recalled working together with a common purpose, and about the bridges that had been crossed between these communities – seemingly so far apart, but now connected through the Ubunye Partnership.
There was much singing and ululating as the farewell ceremony drew to a close. Chaucer are the only school that I have worked with who have composed and performed their own song, complete with actions, to embody the partnership. They performed this one last time, and the community were so taken that they picked up the words and actions, and joined in with gusto.