June/July Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Time to write again – how are you all?  We love to hear your news, too.

Dan and Oscar pose with the participants of the
Community Conflict Mediation training in Kwazulu Natal.

As I mentioned in April, it’s been a busy time. Dan and Oscar did a rural community mediation training in Kwazulu Natal, where election violence has been heaviest. Oscar and I had a great trip to the thirteen different Embassies to advocate for community peace-building to be included in their programming, and alert them to specific concerns in next year’s presidential elections. We’ve been trying to find funding to help in Zimbabwe with their first democratic election in decades, but nothing has materialized yet.

Next week we have another residential Peer Mediation training with high schools from the nearby Lwandle township. The word “township” means the area that Apartheid allowed black workers to
live in hostels and controlled by pass books. Families were not allowed to live here until 1994, when cheap housing and squatter camps sprang up. Mass migration from the rural areas brought a new population here and schools and infrastructure have struggled to keep up. The problems facing Lwandle are different from those challenging Manenberg, a reflection of how different “races” were used and abused under Apartheid. We’ll let you know what we learn next time!

Preparing Peer Mediators for practicing conflict role plays.

We’ve also been following up on the Peer Mediators from Manenberg – all three schools have launched their programs after a month of continuing role plays and practice. Several schools have used them for actual conflicts, and now we prepare for a celebratory certification service in July at the Alliance Française again. We also did a presentation for the teachers and admin so that they could understand when and how to use Peer Mediation.

At one of the schools, we got feedback that we wanted to share with you; their names have been changed to protect their identity. I mentioned that several students struggled at the actual training? Here’s the longer story: Sharif almost got sent home – the friends smoking marijuana he was standing with were driven home, and in this gang-world, loyal solidarity is expected. However, we had noticed Sharif’s keen interest and natural skills in mediation and encouraged him to stay. He did and became one of our best mediators. We were hoping that this might help pull Sharif away from gangs, or at least he can be a better leader among his friends with his new skills in listening and conflict management.

Kathryn addresses the learners at Phoenix High School
as we initiate the Peer Mediation program.

Another turn-around was a young Nicola – she was strung-out the first day, crashed the second, and slept through the third – we debated sending her home, not because she was unruly, but we couldn’t see her getting anything out of the training. The fourth day Nicola was participating, and miraculously, she was leading her mediation group by the fifth day. We were very pleased and thought she must be brilliant to get so much out of a training with her head on the desk half the week.

We continued to see these two students the next month – Sharif with shy smile and warm eyes taking everything in, and tiny Nicola with her sharp tongue and wry sense of humour. The principal mentioned in passing that he had noticed a difference in these two. After sharing with the teachers what we taught at the training, we asked if they had seen a difference in any of the students – most teachers didn’t even know who had gone on the training. Right away they named Sharif and Nicola – it was such a great affirmation. Sharif came back from the week much more focused in his schoolwork, and “calm” was used to describe him several times. He is a natural leader, and he is now using his calm tall presence to settle others around him. Then we learned of Nicola’s transformation – she was suspended earlier in the year for bad behaviour, and recently disciplined for failing grades. After the week with us away from drugs, she soared to the top of her class. A girl who mumbled for days found her voice and the ability to lead her peers and gain respect. Every teacher in the room had noticed the change – we were right – Nicola is brilliant, and she finished the term with a smile. We are not kidding ourselves – our program is not about drug rehab, and the pull of drugs and

Sinoyolo, our new SADRA Intern at the far right, poses with
the Peer Mediators from Silverstream High School

gangs is strong. But hearing these testimonies, over a month after finishing the training shows that small changes that lead to big differences do happen. Those we trained last year have reported how they use these skills not just with other students, but with their younger siblings and friends. They think they aren’t doing mediation, but I quickly affirm they are doing conflict transformation, and that’s the important thing. If we can better listen to each other, be more calm and patient and problem-solve together, then we are living as peace-makers. True for all of us!

Boys excited for pizza on J-C's birthday.

Jacob and Willow and doggie obedience class.

Our family is well, the boys are OK – they have both had birthdays in the last month. It’s winter now – this means that our house is about 50 degrees inside, without central heating, and at 80% humidity, it’s hard to get out of the warm bed in the morning. Since it’s break right now, our oldest child spends as much of the day with his heating pad and sleeping bag as he can get away with. He starts a new school in July – transferring to a Waldorf School, as he is more interested in theatre and music, which is almost non-existent at their current Cambridge-curriculum school. We just joined a good choir in Stellenbosch so John-Clair can have that exposure – we perform Monteverdi’s Vespers in September. Then I start my community project of Vivaldi’s Gloria for Christmas, and Dan is going to be Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun! So we are staying busy and trying to build some relationships. Jacob continues to bond with his new dog Willow and started dog obedience lessons.

Boys showing their awards from their
school Toastmasters Club.

Our new house doesn’t do well with the rain, but of course, we are all thrilled that the dams are filling. We continue to conserve water, of course, so that we will have water half a year from now…
We hope you are well, and thanks again for your interest in us and our work. Please feel free to drop us a note, a question, or picture. Remember that we post regularly on Facebook, too.

Love and hugs,
Kathryn, for Dan, John-Clair and Jacob

April 2018 Update

Dear friends and family, It’s been so long since we’ve written! We hope your new year has been good, and that you’ve seen some of our photos and work updates on Facebook, if you have that. Since we’ve last written, we’ve had to move to another rental house (again, and for the last time here, we sincerely hope), had the epic cross country road trip at the end of the year, and a blazing start to our third year of work here in South Africa. New House and Dog After a year in our Strand house we discovered it wouldn’t work to have a dog there after all, so we didn’t renew the lease and found a house in the neighbourhood of the boys’ school for less money (Somerset West; see our new address below). Unfortunately, the outgoing landlords, frustrated by our decision, refuse to return our deposit, so we are working at that through a housing tribunal mediation. The stress of this situation, along with the work of moving, took its toll on us, but we are very happy to be in our new home with our new dog, Willow! Technically, she is Jacob’s Christmas present – a one-year-old whippet/border collie mix. She is a good dog, if rather stressed from her shelter experience. We keep the bunny hidden away in our back yard; Willow has the front and side yards, and she has figured out how to share the house with our kitty Miems. And we have a garage for the first time since being here – table tennis tournaments encore! Download Support Card (general) Download Support Card (CA specific)

Bringing Willow home. SADRA Work Now that we know our way around, we can do a lot more to help Oscar and SADRA Conflict Transformation. We’ve already done three trainings this year – teaching mediation to community leaders from Nyanga, the community with the highest crime rate in the nation, church leaders from our local township area dealing with anti-immigrant unrest, and the big Manenberg schools peer mediation training. This is the year’s highlight for me (Kathryn) especially, as this is my area where I have built relationships with the three schools and their students. We were full past capacity this year and seemed to have particularly challenged youth – one had buried his father the week before; one had just given birth; several used our five-day residential retreat to detox from drugs; many struggled to give up cigarettes and just sleep “normal” hours. As they described violence in their neighbourhoods, Oscar kindly asked how many had lost an immediate family member in the last two years – 8 of the 56 teenagers stood up. My heart breaks in those moments, and the chance to smile into these faces, hug their thin shoulders, praise them for working hard, and see the changes that happen in their lives over five days are an immense blessing to me. The fact that they feel invigorated with new skills to better understand and interact with their complicated lives means we are doing the right thing. April will be just as busy – Dan is at a rural training with Oscar in the north this week, and then Oscar and I go on our annual pilgrimage to Joburg/Pretoria to visit embassies and explain to diplomats the importance of supporting community peacebuilding as part of their intervention strategies. We’ve been able to do so much more in the last year as an organisation, thanks to a one-year grant from the French government; we now need a follow-up partner to continue. We will host the fourth roundtable dialogue with the provincial electoral commission – current topics of water and land access and economic disparity will play heavily in the next elections and we are putting heads together as proactively as possible. By the end of April, we will need to have started relationships in local township schools to start Peer Mediation there, and we continue to do follow-up and support of community mediators we have trained. Here’s a story from one young trained pastor – there had been several break-ins in his neighbourhood, and one youth was found entering a home that wasn’t his and people had come out and were accusing him of the crimes and the conflict had become violent enough that his life was in danger. Our young pastor stepped in and was able to diffuse the crowd, explaining that he knew the youth as a younger brother from out of town, visiting his brother’s home. He literally saved the man’s life, and he thanks us for giving him the skills to handle that situation.  Youth from Manenberg practicing Peer Mediation skills at the training in Franschhoek. Drought and Day Zero Many of you have asked how Day Zero might unfold as Cape Town dams reached critical levels. As we cautiously enter the rainy season, day zero has been put off till next year, but it’s imminence has changed our lives. We use, re-use and sometimes re-reuse every drop of water with new life-style habits. Rinse water is used for washing, then for toilet flushing or watering plants. Handwashing water is used for household washing, then flushing. Our clothes washer empties into our tub (no more baths; wet-wipes and quick showers only) to be re-used. I’ve even come up with “cluster cooking:” we were already re-using our pasta water to cook oatmeal, but with a block of time I can cook several things at once with just a couple liters. For example, blanch vegetables for dinner’s pasta salad first. Use water to cook pumpkin for pumpkin breakfast bars. Then boil some butternut for tomorrow’s bisque, then cook macaroni in this water for the pasta salad. Now half this nutrient-rich, already-thickened water is broth for the butternut bisque, the other half makes yummy oatmeal. No waste! Four dishes on about three litres of water, and no pots had to be cleaned in between. You get the picture – this is how Capetonians exist these days – we are not the only ones to have switched from filter coffee to espresso and we share tips like this with each other constantly.  We have a new version of “let it mellow” – just ask me if you want to know what it is . . . I hope the rest of the world is paying attention and considering how they use this most precious of resources. Day Zero would have meant a turning off of most taps, and we would have queued daily at a water distribution point for our daily ration of 25 litres each. This would have been chaotic, but it was a good exercise for us all to practise getting down to 25 litres a day. Thanks for reading through our eclectic update – we always love hearing from you and are ever so appreciative of your ongoing support. It’s been a difficult couple of months, but I’m happy to say things are stabilizing out better and we’ve had some breathing space and positive energy again. Much love and hugs to you all, Kathryn, Dan, John-Clair and Jacob Dan and Kathryn Smith Derksen 4 Sir Lowry St. Somerset West 7130 South Africa Bird's nest hang out at Babylonstoren Farm on Easter Monday. Copyright © 2018 Smith Derksen MST, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you know Dan & Kathryn Smith Derksen Our mailing address is: 4 Sir Lowry St. Somerset West 7130 South Africa Our phone numbers are: (D) +27 79 153 2095 (K) +27 79 254 8979