My Placement!

Today I received my placement details for my South Africa internship! I will be working at a center called Nomzamo Place of Safety. The details were sent to me by Cross Cultural Solutions today and are as follows:

Nomzamo Place of Safety was established during the Apartheid to offer a temporary residence to the children of mothers who were arrested for contravening the pass laws. The babies could not be taken to prison with their mothers and an alternative placement was needed.

The 1976 to 1980 political upheavals affected the functioning of the facility and in 1980 the facility moved to Langa where a block house was secured at Zone 22- 60. Since there were no facilities for black African children at the time, the services were extended to accommodate other abandoned, neglected, orphaned and abused children as well.

The mission of Nomzamo is to transform and integrate the facility into the broader community by rendering an effective and efficient service for children under the age of 6 years that takes into consideration their special needs, ensures their safety and well-being, and reunites them with their families. Nomzamo aims to provide a place of safety for children who have been traumatized, provide care to children orphaned, abandoned, neglected, infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, and provide nursing care, spiritual and emotional support and education for orphaned and abused children.

Im extremely excited to be working with the babies but am a bit concerned that the skills I will be working on will be much more micro based then community organizing. They said I would be responsible for help implementing the program and making it run more efficiently, introducing new educational exposure to the children, assist with administrative tasks and 'domestic duties' ie cooking, cleaning and changing diapers haha. I will be speaking with my supervisor and contact at CCS about this to make sure I am not only having a wonderful experience but that my requirements are being met for school.

I can already see myself getting way too attached to these little ones so wish me luck! I will be updating often with all the adventures and what the placement is actually like :)

Peace - AM

Happy St. Patty's Day!  Just made my own green beer with neon green food coloring :)  Me and the roomie just had one, needed a refresher after a long day!  

Getting more and more excited about South Africa everyday.  I got my immunizations yesterday and I was much braver than I expected to be.  I am not a fan of needles period let alone 4 shots :(  I'm up to $600 from the friends and family letters i sent out and am hopeful that I hear from some funding grants soon.  

School is busy as ever but I am trying to stay focused and get as much as I can out of my courses and my field work at Butzel without losing my 'me' time.  Jacky is coming in from Kalamazoo this weekend and I think we'll go to Dominiks for some Sangria.  Its right up her alley and as long as its nice out its one of my favorite spots!  Haven't figured out where to head for dinner yet though.  

I talked to Leslie this week and decided that it would be pretty awesome to move to New York after graduation.  I would have her there as a very close support system and would not be far from my family in New Jersey which would be really nice.  New ideas everyday!  Its nice to have options (well as long as I can find a job;) ).  

Peace & Love -

Alyssa

My very own blog :)

  Decided it was finally time to start my own blog.  I am traveling to South Africa this summer and plan to use this to communicate with my people at home so I figured I'd start early so I can be a pro by May!  Any insight and tips will be much appreciated.

  Choosing a blog title is difficult.  Almost like choosing a title to your own movie, which I have never been good at coming up with.  I chose Echo My Song because I have been listening to India Arie a lot lately and she speaks of wanting to go where the mountains are high enough to echo her song. That is my plan for the summer and I can't wait to tackle Table Mountain.  

  More to come...