Love Life

People walk past buildings every day without knowing what is inside. But going into this building can change a person's life.
LoveLife Youth Center is a non-profit organization (sponsored by VW) focused on the well being of teen aged youths. Today we went to LoveLife and it was amazing!  First of all, people must know that South Africa has the highest rate of HIV in the world. To combat this, LoveLife educates and empowers young adults to care for their bodies and understand how to avoid the risk of HIV infection. This is where I am volunteering this week!

On air!

Learning Xhosa

We toured the organization today to learn about its many programs.  They have a radio station where we got to be a part of their live radio show RadioL2K (pretty cool!), we talked with the nurse in charge of the HIV/Family Planning, saw where they make solar panels for the neighborhood homes, visited the computer lab (many of these young adults have never used a computer), saw the game room (which was currently filled with about 50 new bicycles to donate to the teens), the chat room (for counseling), and the cultural arts room.  They are also proud to have the only net ball court in the area. LoveLife uses many young adult volunteers, and some of these become "Groundbreakers". Groundbreakers are given a sort of internship which will help them be placed in a career the following year. Our oh so friendly Groundbreaker was Einstein. He even attempted to give us a language lesson in Xhosa!

Since HIV has claimed so many live in South Africa, a conference is currently being held in Durban . We held a beautiful, moving candle light ceremony to remember loved ones lost to this disease.
Overall, it was incredibly impressive to see how a community that has so little resources and government help has such a strong sense of community help. That my friends, is the heart and soul of Ubuntu.

African Literature for the little ones! Hooray!!