During the summer of 2005, through Grinnell College’s Global Development Studies Department, I spent two months as a volunteer/intern with The South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP) in Cape Town. SAEP provides, among other educational programmes, a “Gap Year Internship” for recent graduates of the disadvantaged township high schools in the Cape Flats area of the city.  The Gap Year program was mid-way through its third year while I was there, and Norton Tennille, who manages the program, asked me to interview the current group of interns (and as many former interns as I could reach given my limited time with SAEP) and prepare, on the basis of those interviews and my own observations, an analysis of the program’s strengths and weaknesses and recommendations for the way forward.

I have examined and reflected on both the “trees” (the individual interns who are there to improve their skills and find a path toward further education/training and careers) and the “forest” (the program as a whole and the role it plays in the development of some of Cape Town’s brightest and most ambitious young people).  This metaphor seemed appropriate given SAEP parallel focus on both education and the environment and its motto “Green Your Mind, Green Your World.”

In this paper, I provide a background and general description of the program, summaries of my interviews, and a critical analysis of the program and how it can best serve the needs of the learners and the communities it seeks to address.

The Context

In looking at South Africa’s system of public education, one can become easily overwhelmed and discouraged about the state of the nation’s schools. Although democratic elections were held and apartheid was abolished in 1994, leftover attitudes and economic hierarchies from the old system linger. The country is in the throes of a transformation process to raze the structures and legacy of apartheid. Although this process attempts to deal directly with social problems, many of the structures of discrimination remain. These inequities are especially prevalent in the education system. The racial segregation of the past had led to class segregation, which then leads to residential and school segregation, and thus the education system for black children continues to be riddled by biases.

As a result of the extreme racial and socio-economic segregation of South Africa’s urban areas, schools’ locations effectively reinforce polarization in education by limiting the exposure of pupils to the world beyond their immediate community and aggravating inequalities. In addition, the dispersal of schools through residential areas means that limited educational resources are thinly spread, resulting in large numbers of poor quality schools. The net result is an education system that is inadequate and restrictive[1].

Moreover, since the end of apartheid in 1994, one sees that unemployment has grown as fewer and fewer jobs are being created in the “formal” economy.  Of the black South Africans who do have jobs, most work in the “informal” economy—selling fruits and vegetables, washing cars, hawking on street corners, and working as casual laborers or domestic workers.  Too few high school graduates are prepared to do further study in science, engineering, or information and communications technology, where jobs can be more easily created if there is a qualified labor pool to draw from.  Educational opportunities are slowly improving, but the challenges remain staggering. Black schools have far fewer resources than do white schools, and the typical class size is over 40-50 learners. Teachers who are overworked and underpaid do not have the time or energy to give much individual attention to their students.

Development of  SAEP’s Programs

SAEP began in 1994 as the Southern Africa Environment Project by founder Norton Tennille, a retired environmental lawyer from the United States. Tennille established SAEP after an inspiring and informative visit to South Africa. The original objectives of SAEP were to promote the development of environmental law, and to use the environment to create jobs, environmental education, and leadership development. Since its inception, SAEP has evolved such that its primary focus is currently aimed at supporting education and leadership development through programmes of academic support and enrichment for under-resourced schools. SAEP seeks to lay a unique foundation for sustainable economic development and environmental improvement in Cape Town’s townships[2].

With these goals in minds, in 1999 SAEP began its first environmental education programmes with Sinethemba High School, which included excursions to points of interest in and around the area of the city. In 2001, with help from foreign interns and at the request of high school learners who expressed a desire for outside assistance with their school lessons, SAEP began to provide tutoring in maths and biology, and established an extracurricular program which included poetry, creative writing, student journalism, discussion groups, and the publication of a student bulletin.

In early 2003, recent Sinethemba high school graduates Bulelani Futshane and Luzuko Hina re-established their contact with Tennille. Soon after completing their matric examinations[3], Bulelani and Luzuko became concerned about their lack of plans for life after high school[4]. Due to their request for a structured year of volunteer work for SAEP, a new exciting component of SAEP was born when SAEP established the gap year intern program for graduates of Cape Town township high schools.

The gap year program is one of three major educational programmes that are run under the umbrella of SAEP. In addition to its post-matric leadership development and internship program for high school graduates, there are also services for early childhood development (run by Jane Keen, the director of SAEP and the spouse of Norton Tennille, who has 25 years of experience in social work in Cape Town), and high school academic support and enrichment run by Tennille in conjunction with the gap year program.

Since the program’s inception in 2003, the gap year program has taken a small number of “post-matric students” (high schools graduates) and provided them with a bridging year before college filled with a range of opportunities for personal growth and development. During this year, they receive tutoring and spend time studying in order to re-take their matric exams and improve their results. At the same time, the interns are involved in their communities doing service work as tutors and mentors in SAEP’s high school support and enrichment programmes.

It is with the gap year interns that I was fortunate to spend the bulk of my time in my own SAEP internship. It is very difficult to find words to accurately depict the personalities and energy of these ten young people. The positive language with which they share their personal stories and their feelings about SAEP is particularly remarkable when one remembers that the descriptors for their home situations and educational backgrounds would include “disadvantaged” and “underprivileged.” Instead of turning their circumstances into narratives of tragedy and despair, they remain optimistic about their present and their future, and every day bring laughter and fun into the SAEP office.

The members of this group (and they are certainly each unique and distinctive) have engaging spirits and powerful goals that cannot be adequately conveyed in the short descriptions I have composed. However, I think it is important to try to introduce them as individuals, each with his or her own story, in order to underscore that although SAEP’s programmes are of exceptional depth and breadth—and continue to grow and expand—the true measure of the program is in its impact on individual lives.

The 2005 cohort of “gap years” began their internships in late January/early February of 2005 in SAEP’s new quarters in part of a house rented from a neighbour in the Cape Town residential suburb of Rosebank. Prior to this year, the program had been run entirely from the home of Norton Tennille and Jane Keen. The move to larger and separate quarters was necessary both to alleviate some of the burden on the personal lives of Tennille and Keen and to increase the number of interns from five to ten.

The interns travel to and from the Rosebank office and the townships where they live, a journey that takes between an hour and an hour and a half each way. Some interns travel by mini-bus taxi, while others use the train. Although each day and each week at the office is a bit different from every other, the general schedule is as follows: English tutoring takes place nearly every morning, with volunteers from the community coming in to teach lessons to prepare the interns for retaking their matric exams in October/November. Some afternoons and on Saturdays, volunteer tutors from the University of Cape Town (UCT) help prepare them for their other subject exams, such as maths, physical science, biology, history, and geography. Each of these teachers contributes her/his time on an entirely voluntary basis, and their commitment and dedication demonstrate the success of SAEP in inspiring members of the local community to become involved in the personal development of these gifted young people.  Most afternoons, the interns go out to the township high schools, where they run their own tutoring programmes with learners in Grades 11 and 12 in order to fulfil their obligation to do community service as part of the gap year program.

Individual Profiles: The 2005 Gap Year Interns

Amanda Mayo

Although some people in Amanda’s community “don’t understand” what she’s doing at SAEP, she says she looks forward to coming to the office. “It’s fun knowing that I’ll meet my friends here, and everyday there’s something new and interesting. Coming to SAEP is a great opportunity for anyone. There are just minor problems, and if you don’t take them seriously they are nothing… It would be a great opportunity for others, to have the opportunities that we’ve had.”

Amanda is particularly interested in writing and public speaking, and hopes to pursue a future career in contract law.  She would like to finish her degree in five years and soon after that get a job, starting a family when she is 28.

Zukiswa Mdoda

The other members of the “Big Four” are studying at UCT and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) this year. However, since Zukiswa’s family was having financial problems, she didn’t have the money to send in applications to CPUT or UCT. She says, “I want to be where they are today, because we are all like sisters. But I also don’t regret that I’m at SAEP. This is like a first year of university…I’m doing something for myself.”

Zukiswa describes how tutoring learners who are very close to her own age is not an easy thing to do: “When I was in school, I could stand in front of my classmates and explain something. But this [tutoring] is a bit of a challenge because now I am seen as a teacher and I am teaching something.  Being at SAEP is starting to make me see what I am capable of and what my abilities are.  Before, I didn’t know I could stand in front of learners and teach them. I was afraid they would not respect me, and because they are wearing uniforms and I’m not, they would think I’m better than them. [Tutoring] has really helped me to be very confident in myself—to tell myself that I can do it.”

Zukiswa’s goals are to become a chartered accountant, and she is particularly interested in increasing the number of black women in the field. Zukiswa says that she thinks SAEP is a good organization for people like her who didn’t have the chance to go to tertiary immediately upon graduating from high school. “People like me know what they want to do and what they want to achieve. And it helps the communities a lot. [SAEP] helps the youth to know more about themselves, instead of staying at their homes doing nothing. My family knows what SAEP is all about, and they’re glad that I’m here. They know I’m getting something out of the end of the day…I wake up in the morning and know I’m gaining something for myself.”

Miliswa Mnyande

running around trying to get everything together, and that triggered a certain interest in me because I slowly went back to my old energetic self…Each individual here has developed. It took some time for us to adjust… but now we’ve all become more responsible for the roles we have to play.”

Miliswa is appreciative of Jane and Norton’s support, and says, “They make it easy for us to understand what we need to do, for ourselves and for SAEP. We have an open relationship and that has led to us being able to do a lot…I would like for SAEP to get more funding, and to be used as a training institution for learners before they venture into tertiary. The academic and career counselling [from SAEP] has helped us to make better choices, and many of the things we do at SAEP make us probable candidate for acceptance at university.” Miliswa hopes to study toward a Bachelor of Science and imagines herself teaching maths or science at the high school level and then working as a marine biologist.

Neo Monyaki

they are being taught in their mother tongue…Sometimes I wish I had gone to high school in the townships instead, where I would have spoken Xhosa.”

The gap year program was recommended to Neo by a friend who attended Sinethemba High School, and in her interview with Norton, Neo said that she would be willing to do administrative work. Instead of tutoring high school learners as the other interns do, Neo’s work at the SAEP office includes tasks such as taking minutes of meetings, keeping updated schedules and contact lists, and managing some of the petty cash and logistical office duties. Neo says that since this is her first experience doing admin work it has been “difficult and sometimes a bit hard to cope.” Nevertheless, she speaks highly of the various services provided by SAEP, such as the tutoring, mentoring by volunteers, career counselling and opportunities for excursions. Looking back, Neo says that she thinks her high school did have good teachers and did the best that it could, but there were still important components missing, such as career counselling: “If I’d had career counselling already by grade 10, it might have changed my life, and I could have gone to a tertiary institution knowing what I want to do.”

Neo’s wishes that SAEP could be better known throughout the high schools that the program serves: “If SAEP could get more than 10 or 20 interns, there would continue to be more learners who’d want to be in the program. SAEP is really making a difference, and I want more people to be aware of it.”

Zimkhitha Ndinga

Because Zimkhitha has high expectations of herself academically, she wishes SAEP had more intense classes of tutoring that met more regularly: “I think it’s great that we’re doing so much for the high schools, and we shouldn’t do less, but we also need to do more for ourselves. We’re not doing as much as I’d expected…The thing that is good about the tutors is that they encourage us, and there is more of a discussion—in high school you weren’t expected to contribute. Class was just for taking notes, so there was no incentive to do reading. The [SAEP] tutors encourage us to read because we participate in class.”

Zimkhitha acknowledges that most of the gap year interns are worried about next year. The college application process is intimidating, and comes with the added struggle of finding a way to pay for university. Zimkhitha dreams that in five years she will have graduated from university with a bachelor of social sciences and a law degree, at which point she will decide if she wants to practice as a lawyer and then perhaps go into politics or a career as a diplomat.

Phelokazi Ngamlana

Because Phelokazi hopes to have a future career in advertising, she said that working with people and students has been a good experience for her. SAEP has required hard work, dedication, and commitment. Because SAEP is “more of an office than a school,” she has learned quite a lot. At the beginning of the year, Phelokazi thought it would be difficult to work with people from completely different schools who didn’t know each other and hadn’t been friends previously, but has found that “we’ve gotten along well as a team now.”

Furthermore, Phelokazi says that the supervision from Jane and Norton has been especially meaningful: “To be able to sit down with someone and tell them how things are going and what’s going wrong, it’s been quite wonderful. It’s checking up on us, but it’s also an educational lesson. No matter what career we have, we’re going to have to report to someone and get feedback from them, so it’s quite a learning tool…. SAEP is really showing interest in what we are doing now, and what we are going to do in the future. If I’d decided to stay at home, I wouldn’t have had that… I would like to expand SAEP and give it funds so that it can grow larger and larger every year. SAEP is a life-changing experience. If there was a way, each and every person who doesn’t know what to do after matric could do a gap year with SAEP, especially since a lot of the disadvantaged areas don’t provide career guidance and do not make it their number one priority to help learners.”

Andile Nqoko

Andile says that although he had not expected SAEP to be as much work as it is, the experience has been fun. He hadn’t known he would have such exposure to things like “the internet, students who are already at tertiary, or people from foreign countries.” Further, he says that he didn’t expect to gain all the skills that he has now, such as “computer skills, self-motivation, and responsibility.” Although he is very keen on reaching his own personal goals of becoming an electrical engineer, Andile states that more so than that, he wants to achieve for SAEP. He wants to be able to give something of himself, even as soon as during his free time next year, by helping to coordinate the MST club or continuing his volunteering in the township schools.

Andile admires the fact that SAEP encourages each intern to depend on his or her own abilities. He says, “It is up to me what I want to do because I’m the one who knows my abilities. I am not forced to do what I don’t want to do… SAEP said that everything we do, we should do it together so that we can know each other... Spending the whole year here is the best experience of my life.”

Although Andile is positive and admiring of so many of the aspects of SAEP, and fully appreciates the tutoring he receives as well as the opportunity to be a tutor himself, there are negative aspects as well. Andile says that on his daily walk from the train station to the SAEP office in the predominantly white neighbourhood of Rosebank, he often feels humiliated: “The people around us look at us like we’re bad… That they don’t feel free in our presence makes me angry, and I hate it that they don’t trust me. People are assuming I’m going to mug them, or that I’m here to steal.” Andile made the suggestion that SAEP could organize to have a uniform or a t-shirt that describes SAEP to help in changing some attitudes.

Because Andile was already accepted at CPUT last year, he feels that he will get in again. He has now saved some money from the stipend that SAEP provides, but realizes that this might not be enough. Andile has applied for more than 10 financial aid bursaries, but only two have responded, and both in the negative. He says that when he is applying for bursaries, it is like facing the colour of his own skin: “I think they don’t even look at my application because of my name and surname. There are other financial aids I can try to use, but I don’t know about paying for the rest of my course… I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.” Andile’s primary goal is to be accepted at CPUT and to be able to pay for his education. He says, “After that, my goals will be widened. My later goals are to work hard and do the best for myself, and to reduce the difficulties that my mother faces.”

Mahlubandile Ntshoko

He explains this choice by saying that the expectations of the supervisors at SAEP changed too quickly. Mahlubandile was initially interested in doing weekly reports and receiving recommendations about how to improve, but says that these became “exaggerated.” Mahlubandile considered himself to be at SAEP for personal development, and says that at the beginning it was a good place. However, recently Mahlubandile has found something that he believes will suit him more, which is working toward his diploma in computer networking at Information Technology (IT) Business College. When Mahlubandile finishes this degree, he believes he will have a good chance at a job involving networking infrastructure.

Bandile Qashani

Bandile says of the learners attending his after school classes: “They are people who are very interested in working, very keen to pass. They wish to be something at the end of the year. They know that when they attend the classes, they will do better at the end of the year…We have gotten a great response from the learners.”

Similar to his best friend Andile, Bandile had plans at the beginning of the year to attend CPUT and study chemical engineering. Because of financial reasons, he was unable to attend his first year of tertiary right after high school. Even so, Bandile is proud to be a gap year intern with SAEP, and says: “It’s a great privilege to give back to my community, a great experience to be part of SAEP, learning skills and becoming a responsible person…The most important thing to me is to help my family live a better life and to help the underprivileged learners from the townships. I want to develop the education of the township schools, to help them develop their facilities.”

Ncedo Richard Tyembile

Although The Media School story is clearly a success, the circumstances behind how Richard came to be a gap year intern are heartbreaking. On the day before he planned to start writing his matric exams, Richard was in a devastating car accident that caused the death of his best friend and severely injured his hand. However, because of the strict nature of the examination schedule, Richard had no choice but to go ahead and take his exams anyway, although his concentration and academic abilities were obviously severely disturbed by the accident. When he got his results and saw that he had not done well, Norton (who already knew Richard and had been impressed with his assertiveness and motivation in requesting  more attention for learners interested in journalism, invited him for an interview and then to join the intern program so that he could work to upgrade his marks.

Richard is grateful for this opportunity for multiple reasons: “When I came here I wanted a break from what I was doing at school. I was in the spotlight at high school, the pressure was on and everyone was watching me. I thought SAEP would give me directions about what I should do in my future. The reality is that SAEP has changed me from the person I was in my schooldays. Now I’m more mature and more responsible and no longer relying on anyone else.” Although Richard says that when he first came to SAEP he was not comfortable and found it difficult to express himself to people who did not know him well, that feeling has since changed and he now thinks of Norton as a “second parent.” He believes that the guidance from Norton and Jane is superb.

Former Gap Year Interns

In addition to my conversations with the current gap year interns of 2005, I was also able to find out about what some former SAEP interns from 2003 and 2004 are doing now, and how they feel that SAEP has guided and informed their present situations. This is only the briefest of sketches of five of the ten gap year interns who have already completed the program. Almost all of SAEP’s former interns continue to have contact with Tennille and the organization, and are committed to giving back to SAEP because they are grateful for what SAEP has given to them. It seems that most people who have ever been involved with SAEP in the past care deeply and passionately about its present and future success. SAEP remains a community of support that can be turned to for answers, connections, academic and career suggestions and perhaps most importantly, camaraderie and friendships. 

Luzuko Hina (2003 Intern)

Luzuko was one of the original instigators for the gap year intern program—without his catalysing suggestion to Norton two and a half years ago, it’s likely that SAEP would never have developed it. Because of his continued involvement since the beginning, Luzuko has been able to observe many of the changes as they’ve unfolded. In recalling his 2003 year as a gap year intern, Luzuko says that the program has adjusted from mostly focusing on implementing extracurricular activities for the high schools and building relationships with other organizations, to a focus on “getting the gap years back to school.”

Luzuko says, “For us [as gap year interns], our focus was not on the next year until the end of 2003, when everyone was worrying about what we were going to do, and we started looking for alternatives to going to school. We needed cheaper alternatives because we didn’t have funds. I went to an Information Technology SETA, where I spent six months studying theory and six months on a practical.” After completing his IT work, Luzuko struggled to find employment, and spent some time re-visiting and working for SAEP. Most recently, Luzuko has found a computer-related job with the South Africa Revenue Service (SARS), about which he is very excited.

Luzuko is eager to share his feelings about the “big” influence SAEP has had in his life, and says of his gap year, “It was a very noisy year, with lots of laughter and characters. That was one good year, one perfect year. I really enjoyed myself that year…People at SAEP have different attitudes than people in the townships. Here I was able to express myself and use computers. [Now] I see a lot of people in the workplace who have not had the same exposure I’ve had, and who are not able to differentiate between being at work and being with friends—you need to know how to give respect to the management.” Luzuko also spoke warmly of the influence Tennille has had on his self-confidence and ambitions: “Norton would ask me what I would like to do and about how I saw myself. He told me I had people skills, so I tried to work more on that. When someone tells you something like that, it’s a compliment and it makes you want to work harder. It builds you as a person. When people ask ‘what would you like to do in the future?’ that makes you believe you can succeed.” Luzuko wishes that SAEP could have more funds, and thus be a perfect place for people to gain more experience: “SAEP is a learning platform. Where people pick themselves up and they go.”

Ayanda Mpu (2003 Intern)

After a somewhat rocky beginning of several frustrating job searches that did not yield results, Ayanda is now working for Telkom SA, a position he credits in part to SAEP and its help in getting him a SETA learnership at Concept Interactive, where he studied web design after his year as a gap year intern. Ayanda explains, “When I express myself, I use the skills that I got from SAEP. If I go to an interview, I have no fears and I am always positive, which is an influence from SAEP. There is a lot I can tell you about the leadership skills and motivation I got from SAEP… The programmes that have been offered by SAEP to our school were very much vital and motivating to me and other interns... If I did not have SAEP, I would not be here.”

Nosisa Mhlathi (2004 Intern)

Like Luzuko (and the rest of the former interns for that matter), Nosisa recognizes the role that SAEP has played in her life. As a Sinethemba High School graduate, Nosisa began attending classes at the University of the Western Cape right after completing her matric, and says that she would not have made it through her first year of tertiary without her involvement in SAEP’s high school tutoring programmes. It was after her first year of university that Nosisa worked within the gap year structure for several months while also managing a job and continuing to be enrolled in school.

After her second year at the University of the Western Cape, Nosisa took a “gap year” with SAEP because she lacked the funds to continue her education.  That gap year led to a six-month internship with an environmental NGO where she was able to save enough to return to UWC in 2005.  While completing her studies, she is supporting herself by working part time on a health research project for the Desmond Tutu TB Center.  Nosisa has continued her involvement with SAEP by serving on the Management Committee of the organization.

Nosisa’s passion is in the intersection of environmental issues and writing, and her goals include becoming a successful journalist and studying Environmental Law at Rhodes University.

Sandiso Phaliso (2004 Intern)

Sandiso started participating in SAEP’s poetry, news bulletin, and debating activities as early as 2000, when he was in grade 9. He credits these language arts endeavours with leading to an increased confidence, and a new ability to talk in groups without fear. After high school, he joined the intern program on the recommendation of a friend, in the hopes of upgrading his matric exam results. For Sandiso, this was an ideal option. “It was useful. I didn’t want to sit in the townships doing nothing. The money they gave us for pocket money was helpful, as were the many skills from workshops.” Sandiso is particularly grateful to SAEP for helping to nurture his interest in journalism, and regards himself as lucky to have realized his dream so early. Sandiso is now doing a 36-week course for a Journalism Learnership at AMAC, and is considering going to university next year to work toward a degree in journalism.

Ndzuzo Mazaza (adjunct in 2005 Program)

Although never an official gap year intern for SAEP, Ndzuzo has been involved with SAEP for almost six years now and participated for three months in the 2005 program as a part of his university studies.  Ndzuzo is glad to be able to say that he has gained a lot from all of those years, and especially when he was in high school and there were not many activities offered by the school, SAEP “managed to keep learners busy.” Ndzuzo passed his matric exams in 2002 and immediately went on to study at the tertiary level at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, but has since been “making an effort to come to the SAEP offices to assist gap year interns during my free times.”  Most recently, Ndzuzo was working in a challenging position as a Network and Systems administrator for SAEP as part of his degree studies at CPUT and is now in his final semester of studying Information Technology there. He says that SAEP has played a major role in what he is currently doing, since it was at SAEP that he was first introduced to computer work.

Critique and Recommendations

Although SAEP is doing a tremendous amount of fundamentally and significantly helpful work in the Cape Town township communities and the feedback from the current and former interns is overwhelmingly positive, no organization, even SAEP, is perfect. In my nine weeks with SAEP and in doing my interviews with the gap year interns, some issues were raised that should be addressed  in order to allow for the program to run more smoothly.

Need for Strategic and Tighter Organization

The way that SAEP has evolved both naturally and quickly in response to needs expressed by the participants, without careful and advance planning or any start-up funding from the outset, can be seen as both a blessing and a curse. SAEP has flexibly and creatively accommodated the needs of many different people and kinds of situations, but there is a limit to how far they will be able to continue growing before the speed and the urgency of the changes catches up with them. Structurally, this is something that Tennille and members of the SAEP boards are working on currently, as they seek to develop plans for several years into the future of SAEP.

On a more micro scale, the interns working in the office would also benefit from a more cohesive schedule of how they should be spending their time in the office everyday, and what needs to be accomplished during each month of their gap year in order to be prepared for the following year. SAEP needs money to pay a staff person to be in the office on a regular basis, helping the interns to improve the efficiency of their studying and their time management skills.

Group orientation and establishing clear expectations

In many of the interviews with the current gap year interns, it seemed that when they first arrived at SAEP, there was some element of confusion about what exactly their year would consist of.  The application process to become a gap year intern is further complicated by the fact that learners do not know their matric results until the end of December, giving them very little time to make plans for their first year after graduation, since the university term begins the following February. If there could be a way to consolidate the arrival of new interns at SAEP at a single time in January (there is now a staggered arrival as individuals explore their options during the first weeks of January), many of the interns expressed that they thought that would help them to establish more positive group dynamics at the start. Although at this point the friendships between the interns seem very strong and solidified and healthy, several interns referenced the fact that the group was a mixture of people from different backgrounds and cultures who each had a different attitude, and that the group would benefit from a more formal orientation or team-building initiation to SAEP.

There is a contract that each intern signs at the beginning of the year, but there seemed to be some elements of miscommunication about exactly how binding the contract is, and what the complete expectations really are for the entire year. More specifically, the obligations between the SAEP supervisors and the interns, between the interns and their tutors, and between the interns and the schools could be more firmly established at the beginning of the year so as to prevent misunderstandings in the future. Several interns also expressed interest in finding a way for their families to be more informed via structured meetings about SAEP.

Impact of Visitors and Volunteers

Many international and domestic volunteers have worked with SAEP since its beginning. There is no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of these people have shared enriching skills and resources with SAEP. Benefits of having a wide variety of volunteers are many—interns get exposure to foreign people and perspectives that they might not otherwise, they meet mentors and friends who are interested and motivated to help them, and the organization gets fresh energy and insights coming in its doors. However, the downside to this is that most of these volunteers are relatively short-term—they may be in South Africa for two weeks or two months, but not usually any longer than a semester.  I am fully aware that in my own position as a “winter” intern (the US summer is winter in the Southern hemisphere), SAEP invested a lot of time and energy into helping me feel acclimated, welcome, and informed enough to have an experience like the one I was so lucky to enjoy.

Volunteers can be an asset to any organization, but it can also be exhausting to all involved (interns, volunteers, and Jane and Norton) to have many new people arriving and requiring assignments, attention, and explanations (which have already been given countless time before) in order to truly participate in and be useful to what occurs at the office. Relationships cannot be “pressure-cooked,” as SAEP English teacher June Humphry points out, and as much as someone tries to prepare him or herself for a new experience, there is still a certain period of adjustment and transition. A concerted effort to obtain more volunteers from both South Africa and abroad who can and will plan to stay with SAEP for 6 months to a year would improve the continuity of the program’s efforts.

Broadening the Options Explored with the Interns

There is no question that the gap year interns are smart, motivated, and capable individuals. The goals they set for themselves at the beginning of the year deserve to be credited and supported. However, these goals will in many cases evolve or change dramatically as they have the opportunity to learn more about themselves, possible careers, and the paths to pursue them.  Moreover, there will be much in the coming year that is out of anyone’s control, and entry into the tertiary education system is difficult to confidently and successfully negotiate. If SAEP wants to be absolutely and fully supportive of the future of its interns, in addition to urging them to aim high and dream big, the interns need to be encouraged to have sensible back up plans in place in the event that their aspirations to attend university might prove unattainable for a variety of reasons. The interns do receive some career guidance early in their gap year, but further practical and constructive suggestions, counselling, and continued support provided throughout the year would be more effective and useful.

Conclusions

The current gap year intern program is somewhat different from the intern program of the two previous years. Since its inception at the beginning of 2003, SAEP has experienced expansion in several different ways. The gap year intern programmes of 2003 and 2004 had five interns each, while the 2005 program has ten. Although Tennille had originally planned to take five interns again this year, when office space became available at a house just around the corner from Tennille and Keen’s home (out of which the program had been entirely based previously), SAEP realized that it would be possible—albeit still challenging—to accommodate an increased number of interns.  Because of the very high level of interest from recent high school graduates, Tennille found it very difficult to turn down any one of the ten.  As Tennille himself concedes, doubling the number of interns in 2005 has stretched SAEP’s financial and human resources to the utmost.

Resource Constraints and Location Issues

Given SAEP’s limited resources and funding, and particularly the lack of any paid staff, the program continually struggles to provide adequate supervision and mentoring for the increased number of interns and to cover its day-to-day expenses (a minimum of R500 per intern per month for stipend and transport alone). Tennille himself says that his propensity (and perhaps weakness) has been to expand programmes in the hopes that SAEP will be able to increase its resources to maintain the support. This strategy has not always been successful, but for the most part has worked out, though at a cost of enormous stress to Tennille and Keen.  The arrival in April of a volunteer from the Netherlands, Maruschka Boomsma, on a full time basis for the rest of the year has relieved some, but not all of the pressure to provide adequate supervision and guidance to the interns.

Tennille explains that although SAEP has managed to run all of its programmes for less than $50,000 a year, in reality at least $100,000 is needed to actually do the work of the organization, and far more to carry it to the levels he would like to see it achieve. These funds go for things such as gas to drive to and from the townships, food for the kids SAEP works with, medical and optical exams and treatment and glasses (which the students often need but have never had), computers and software, office supplies, excursions and cultural events. . At least one supervisor position is needed for SAEP’s growing volunteer program, and several others for various aspects of the gap year, high school, and pre-school programs.

In looking ahead to the gap year interns of 2006, Tennille foresees that due to the level of interest and talent among Grade 12 learners, SAEP could easily take on at least 20 top candidates for the program without doing any aggressive recruiting. With the positive results of the past several years and a promising future of a program full of dedicated and motivated high school students, it is hard to not wish to expand the program. However, such an extension would require changes in the application and admission process, which will need to go into effect in the next few months. A necessarily immediate new task would be to revise and improve the information sheet and application form; target high school learner candidates who are already known through SAEP tutoring programmes and who have an established positive relationship with SAEP; review applications; contact references; conduct interviews; review matric results; and develop a decision-making process involving Tennille and Keen as well as other members of the Management Committee.  This would require more staff and resources than SAEP currently has.

Moreover, complaints from neighbors to the City Council about SAEP’s activities have resulted in a formal complaint and negotiated order to vacate the quarters from which the internship programme is operated by the end of November.  This means that if the gap year program is to continue, much less expand, adequate new quarters (at considerably greater cost than the current space) will have to be found almost immediately and funds to move and house the program raised in a very short space of time.  While the Cape Town City Council is supporting the gap year program with a grant of R40,000 during the last six months of 2005, there is no funding in place to continue the program in 2006.  Moreover, SAEP must decide where and how large the office should be, which in turn depends upon how much SAEP can afford to spend and how much money can be raised for the coming year and the years that follow.

Strategic Planning Process

SAEP is currently working to develop a long-term strategic plan for making each of its programmes, including the gap year program, more coherent and sustainable, as well as finding a way to have more supervisors to take responsibility for the high school and gap year programmes over the next five years. Tennille hopes to expand and enrich the project, as well as ensure that there are other individuals with the knowledge, ability, and continuous involvement to help guide SAEP’s future, enabling Tennille and Keen to spend more time on their own personal matters in addition to institutional development of SAEP and its other programs (pre-school and high school support) and writing about SAEP’s experience to date.

Possible scenarios for the future of SAEP are very specifically tied to the amount of support—financial and otherwise—that can be raised. Beginning in 2006, SAEP will need to have money and a well-considered strategic plan in place. In Tennille’s work with members of both the South African and the American[7] branches of SAEP, he is currently drafting proposals to share with the management committees during September 2005.  One option is to consolidate SAEP’s current operations into a Centre for Innovative Education and Community Service, which would target bringing on board a number of volunteers or “fellows” who would spend six months to a year at SAEP to provide the staffing needs for programs such as the Gap Year.  This Centre would serve as a home for the high school program, the gap year program, a volunteer program (for  both local and international volunteers), a research arm to help with analysing and documenting the SAEP experience, a new program that would focus on primary education (building upon SAEP’s relationship with Ikwezi Langomso school), a special environmental education program, and expanded activities in poetry, creative writing, journalism, photography and film, drama, art (and ideally other fine arts such as dance and music).

Ideas like this are inspiring, and after being involved with SAEP it is easy to immediately understand how meaningful and essential such goals are. But the resources that will be required are vast. Tennille estimates that such an undertaking would need about $500,000 over the next 3 years; an attractive and functional space that would allow for growth; the ability to hire paid staff (for management and fundraising and institutional development in particular); one or more SAEP vehicles for transport and drivers; foreign volunteers/staff on a longer basis than two months as part of a greatly expanded volunteer/service project; staff to administer the high school and gap year programmes (hopefully to include recent South African university graduates who would work, if not on a volunteer basis, then at least for a small sum such as R1500 to R2000 per month; significant partnerships in both SA and the US with colleges and universities (Grinnell, Duke, Wake Forest, and others) and other institutions; exchanges of students going both ways; and programmes in which SAEP hosts groups of US students who will study part time (for credit) and work in our programmes on the ground. Tennille is conscious of the fact that this is a big dream, certainly, but also fervently believes that given the past and present successes of SAEP, there should be supporters and partners out there who will help guide the future.

On an economic and personal level, the current stretching of both the budget and the lifestyles of those people involved with SAEP cannot continue indefinitely. Although a certain element of magic seems to have successfully held the program together thus far, important decisions about SAEP need to be made in the near future.  The problem is primarily and ultimately about locating the money to assist in carrying on the work that has been so phenomenally and passionately created by Norton Tennille, Jane Keen, and other members of the South African Education and Environment Project family.

SAEP Gap Year Program as Model

SAEP’s accomplishments have also reached and inspired others who are interested in community development. Mustering enough support to create an expansion that would enable SAEP to be a flagship project able to be emulated elsewhere is certainly a worthwhile and attainable objective. The Cape York Institute in Queensland, Australia is already developing a gap year program based on the SAEP model. Kate Orkin, a UCT student who has been working with SAEP for the last three years, plans to start up a gap year program as part of the Youth Development Program of UCT’s student volunteer organization, SHAWCO.  And Chris Howard, a former American Rhodes Scholar who works for General Electric, has recently decided to establish a “mini-gap year” program for high school graduates in the Johannesburg area with whom the Impact Young Lives Foundation is working.

In so many ways, SAEP is doing transformative and brilliant work with youth in Cape Town, South Africa. As any visitor to or resident of South Africa knows, there is an incredible amount of social justice and national development work that needs to be done in order for the country to reach the goals that it has set for itself and to truly be free from the ingrained inequalities that the apartheid system has left. By working so directly within the school system and with its recent graduates, SAEP is focusing on the next generation of South Africans who will need educational opportunities beyond what is currently available in order to meet their potential and take care of their families and communities.  Its gap year program is serving, and should continue to serve, as a model for other youth development programs in South Africa and elsewhere.

Acknowledgments

Many pieces of previous research done on South Africa’s system of education, and specifically on the South Africa Education and Environment Project (SAEP), aided me in writing this report. As part of my two-month internship with SAEP, I wrote this paper in August 2005 with the goal of producing an updated report on SAEP’s Gap Year Intern program. Similar reports written by Rachel Glickel (SIT researcher, 2003) and Tomas Lopez (Duke University intern, 2004), as well as SAEP’s June 2004 Annual Report, were enormously helpful in finding a structure and a framework for my own writing. I have used some of their descriptions and details when relevant so as not to reinvent the wheel, particularly since the bulk of this report was written when Norton Tennille and Jane Keen were out of the country and thus difficult to reach regarding some of my questions.

Personal Experience

When I first walked into the kitchen of Norton Tennille and Jane Keen on June 13, 2005, I did not know exactly what I was getting myself into or the extent to which I would quickly grow to admire and respect the people and programs of SAEP. I am tremendously appreciative of the people who have welcomed me in this internship, and all the ways I was able to participate in the various aspects of SAEP in my two months here. In addition to conducting interviews to aid in the writing of this report, I have been lucky to be involved in several of the dynamic activities of SAEP’s day-to-day business—attending meetings between different people affiliated with SAEP, going on a Saturday hike to Table Mountain with high school learners from Sinethemba high school, assisting with crèches applications to receive funding from the Lottery Board, co-facilitating the Touchstones discussion group, learning about the general flow of tasks at the office and asking many questions about the organization, accompanying interns to the township high schools, visiting crèches and teaching English children’s songs, editing articles and helping to put together an edition of the GO MST!! news bulletin, visiting the Journalism and Media camp and the SAICA science camp, going on SAEP outings to Rondevlei Nature Research, Muizenberg Beach, and around the Cape Peninsula, tutoring a grade 11 English class at Intsebenziswano High School, and doing some career counselling and having conversations about tertiary applications with interns. I was very fortunate to spend time working with other international volunteers -- Maruschka Boomsma (the Netherlands), Tom Burgess (University of Wisconsin: Madison) and Barbara Diehl (Switzerland).