Reporters and presenters:
Presenter:
JV John Vidal
Reporters:
DS David Smith
EE Ellen Elmendorp
LF Liz Ford
RK Richard Kavuma
SJ Sam Jones
Participants:
AS Angel Siyavuya Swartbooi, known as ‘Siya’
N Nonzuzo, Siya’s mother
WK Wyclif Kukiriza
DLD David Lewis Dieumerci
HAK Hannah Adzo Klutsey
B Benjamin, Hannah’s father
DMM Debrah Matei Mwololo
ZSA Zainab Salehe Abu
Innocent Smoke
Sijjin Kuang
Prosper Mumba
Podcast
JV It all began with a few people sitting around in a room in London talking about debt relief in Africa and millennium goals and statistics and policies. What we realised that we didn’t have was the voice of Africa, we didn’t have people telling their own stories.
My name is John Vidal and I am normally the environment man at the Guardian. And ten years ago I went to Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. This idea that the millennium development goals were going to change the future of a continent over a long period of time gave us the idea of the birth of the idea being matched by the birth of children.
It’s really a journalistic enterprise to witness and to record the voices of ten children as they grow up and as they develop and as their countries and their continent develops into something we know not what.
DS My name is David Smith. I’m the Africa correspondent of the Guardian, based in Johannesburg. I just flew to Cape Town to visit Angel Siyavuya Swartbooi born in 2005 and living in a township called Khayelitsha on the outskirts of Cape Town.
AS My name is Angel Siyavuya Swartbooi. My age is ten years old.
DS South Africa, as we know, is in many ways the superpower of the continent. Yet 21 years after the end of racial apartheid there is what many people would say is still a total crisis in the education system. Around half the children who begin school proper in South Africa will drop out by the time they come to the metric exam which I guess is the equivalent of GCSEs really.
What’s your favourite subject at school?
AS Medicine.
DS Siya, as he’s known to his family, he’s now at a primary school in Khayelitsha. He has a bit of a long walk to get there but it’s free at the point of entry, it’s a government school that’s 20 years old. Many schools are underperforming but in Siya’s particular case it’s going reasonably well.
DS What time do you get up every day to come to school?
AS Six o’clock, or half six.
DS Is that too early?
AS Yes.
DS It’s been fascinating to watch Siya’s family, his father, Benson, and his mother, Nonzuzo, gradually incrementally sort of hauling themselves up. They’re still in a very modest shack in Khayelitsha in South Africa; there’s a lot of poverty and there’s a lot of crime but over the years they’ve very gradually expanded the shack from one room to two, from 12 square meters to about 25 square meters to sort of slowly but surely improve their daily lives. Nonzuzo is very determined to study. She quit her job as a waitress at a casino, she got a bursary, she’s begun a three-year teaching diploma at a college and she has ambitions to go to university, study for a degree and become a teacher.
EE Nonzuzo, when you finish your studies, can you teach in a school like this?
N Yes when I finish, I’m going to teach from grade R to grade 9.
EE What’s the salary?
N The salary?
EE With your teaching.
N I think it’s ten.
DS In the long term they hope to move out the shack and the township to a more middle-class area. They’re very hardworking and lots of ambition and slowly but surely getting there.
LZ I’m Liz Ford, and I’m deputy editor of the Guardian Global development section; and I was lucky to go to Uganda and speak to Wyclif.
WK My name is Wyclif Kukiriza.
LZ And how old are you, Wyclif?
RK He says, ‘I am ten years old.’
LZ When Wyci was born the family was living in a three-bedroom house in Kampala. Five years ago he was in school, everything was doing okay. Unfortunately over the last ten years life seems to have taken a bit of a downward spiral for the family. Five years ago they were moved to a two bedroom bungalow and now after Dad left three years ago the family is now living in one room in Bwaise. Mum, Deborah, is struggling so she washes clothes and she sells second-hand shoes to support herself and Wyci and his younger brother, and an older daughter from a previous relationship. So life is difficult for her.
The school that he was going to up until a few years ago actually closed. It was a government-run school so there were no fees. This is an area that floods a lot and the government decided that this school was too dangerous to keep open, so it closed it. And rather than give an alternative it’s just kind of almost like walked away. The nearest schools generally are private institutions and mother Deborah just cannot afford the fees. So Wyci is not in school at the moment.
JV Every single family who we picked ten years ago has gone through their own dramas of just surviving in sometimes very difficult circumstances. In Malawi, Innocent Smoke’s parents they uprooted themselves from Lilongwe, the capital, in a desperate attempt to try and earn more money. The problem with that was that the schools around there are absolutely hopeless. So young Innocent, although he started off well, and did very well for the first couple of years in class, has really now stopped and he hasn’t learnt any English at all and he really hasn’t got any confidence. And a lot of that I think is to do with the school system.
They thought that by becoming farmers and by growing tobacco and growing maize they could do better. And in a way they did, it was absolutely tremendous. What they were hit by was climate change he says so he’s only had two good harvests in seven/eight years. And hit by commodity prices; so tobacco partly because of the west getting out of smoking cigarettes, tobacco prices have gone down. So they’ve been hit by things much greater than themselves and now want to go back. He wants to go back and be a builder. He feels that there’s an elite middle-class in Lilongwe and he can build for them and he can make a lot of money as he wants to become a property developer, whether he could ever so do is another matter; but that’s his dream is to make money from the wealthy new class which is arriving in Lilongwe.
DS It’s interesting to see this within the narrative of changes in Africa over the past decade. A lot has been said and written about Africa rising, about the economic boom in many countries, not least driven by Chinese investments and Chinese seeking resources. And a lot of that is true, there are great headline figures. But when you dig deeper into it there has been rising inequality, and while there is an elite who are benefiting and certainly an expanding middle class, also millions of people being left behind. So it’s important to temper all the euphoria with some reality.
DL My name is David Lewis. I’m in fifth grade at St Clement’s School.
JV Young David Lewis in the Democratic Republic of Congo – tell me what happened to him because this is quite an extraordinary story.
LF He was going to a Catholic school which was a short walk from where he lives with his parents and three siblings. Maths was his favourite subject. But unfortunately his dad has been out of work for quite a while and mum needed an operation to recover the vision in her right eye quite recently and that was about $600. So the school that he was going to would charge $50 in school fees each semester and there’s no way the family could afford it.
DL I’m not able to attend school as a student seated on the bench. As soon as I arrive I’m immediately sent away. When Mama brings me back to plead, they don’t want me to enter because she has to pay the school fees as papa doesn’t work and there’s no-one there to help us.
LF It does seem possibly that there’s concerns about street gangs in this particular part where they are living, so the next five years are going to be crucial for his development and the avenues that he could find himself going into. So it’s just really difficult to say. You can be going along quite well in a lot of places there isn’t that safety net. So things could be fine one day and then the rug is pulled under you the next day and you’ve got very little choices or opportunities.
DL When I grow up I need to become president. I could become president of Europe, of Angola. Yes I could replace President Kabila. As president I’m going to develop my country.
SJ My name’s Sam Jones. I’m the Guardian’s Global Development correspondent and I’ve been in Accra, Ghana, looking for one of our Hear Africa babies, a 10-year-old girl whose name is Hannah Klutsey.
HK My name is Hannah Klutsey. I am class three. My school name is … [inaudible].
SJ I think we need to recognise that Ghana has done incredibly well on poverty reduction. Hannah Klutsey who is now 10, like all the other children whose progress we’ve been following, is still in school. It’s a big struggle for her family but she’s carrying on getting education and she’s doing pretty well health-wise. That said, the reality as ever is a little bit more complicated. While average-wise across the country things are doing well, in the north it’s very different. And even in the outskirts of Accra where Hannah and her family live, life is not easy.
B Well I’ve heard of them.
SJ And do they [the goals] have any practical impact on his life, does he see anything getting better because of this talk?
B I am seeing improvements in my life. I got electricity about three months ago. Formerly I was connected to someone else’s line.
SJ Her dad is sort of getting by in a hand-to-mouth existence taking work, digging topsoil to get sand that is taken into Accra. He gets to work some days, some days he doesn’t. So the family struggle by on about eight quid a week and they’re managing but it’s basically just that, it’s managing.
SJ Does she help her mother, what does she do to help her mother?
SJ You fetch water. And you fetch water from … over there? So off we go a little way from your house and past some chickens, and it must be about 15, 20 yards away there is a concrete well and I can see somebody’s beaten us to it and they’ve already got a bucket.
SJ The family is getting by, they’re happy. And as dad, Benjamin, told me that their house now has its own electricity and they don’t have to tap to be able to survive anymore. They’ve got an outside toilet they can use and the water that Hannah draws from the well it’s clean and doesn’t make them sick. And he says those are all new things that he’s seen over the past 10 or so years. So even though he’s scraping by living hand to mouth supporting his family he has seen some concrete improvements.
DMM My name is Debrah Mwololo. I am ten years old. Five years ago I was smaller but now I am big. I am tall now.
DMM I have one brother and one sister.
LF Debrah in Kenya, our 10-year-old in Kenya it’s just so nice to have an upbeat story. She says how much she loves school and she loves her teacher and she loves Christian religious education particularly, at school. She’s got her best friend. She loves reading. So this school that’s quite near the family home in Nairobi. So very positive. A completely different view on how well education and how well a child can do just in a different environment.
DMM My favourite storybook is Grandmother Visits.
LF Life is very rosy and very positive – and that’s just a brilliant thing to hear. The house they have electricity, she has TV, she has friends, she likes playing hide and seek with her friends. There is a slight concern, there’s rumours that where they’re living, the houses may be demolished at some point because it’s a poorer area and these kind of areas are quite fragile places to live. But I think that for now they’re not thinking about that and she just seems a very happy child.
SJ A little earlier this year I was also in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, looking for another of our Hear Africa children, a little girl called Zainab.
ZSA I go to … [inaudible] … primary school. I’m in class four.
SJ Zainab’s family they’re really struggling. Life is far from easy for them. Just talking about health, Zainab’s life is punctuated with bouts of malaria. When I was there she said she had very bad malaria in January. She had to take a week off school, she felt light-headed. She told me she thought she was going to die.
In May 2005 Guardian colleagues found Sijjin Kuang; he was born in a mud hut on the outskirts of Rumbek in what was then southern Sudan. He was born on 16 May and he died on 23 May, so he died a week after he was born. Several reasons, by the look of things, for this. It looks like his umbilical cord was cut with a dirty razor which gave him tetanus. He seems to have got an infection of the airways as well. And on top of that he was bitten by a mosquito and probably had malaria as well. So three incredibly difficult conditions all at once, and at a week old, there was no chance.
JV In Malawi the child mortality certainly in the Smoke family is not a problem. They started off when I met them, there were three children now there are seven children. The family is happy, the family believes strongly that the improvements in child mortality have led to their wealth, have led to their confidence in the future. So actually it’s a very positive story from Malawi.
What I found really problematic was the health, and I’ll talk just very briefly about young Innocent Smoke because he was doing quite well at school and then he’s got very early signs of trachoma which is an eye disease which, inevitably, will blind him over the next ten years unless he gets to a clinic pretty fast in Lilongwe. And this was a story right way through all the families I talked to in Malawi had some child, one child which was very, very ill.
SJ The big story really has been HIV and Aids. South Africa still has the biggest case load in the world. But after those years of denialism by the South African governments, now there’s a huge programme of [anti-retrovirals] and it’s made a real impact in terms of improving life expectancy; and importantly in this context reducing mother-to-child transmission and therefore improving the child mortality figures. There are still major problems clearly and again in rural areas children do suffer. But South Africa apart from one or two areas does not have malaria and does not have a lot of the major issues that we’re talking about elsewhere.
LF Millennium development goal number six which talks about combating HIV and Aids in Uganda which has made significant progress over the years of tackling that particular issue; Wyci’s mum, Deborah, actually when Wyci was born in 2005 there were worries that he might become an Aids orphan because his parents were both HIV positive but not on antiretrovirals. Wyci himself was born free of the virus because he had the right care and his mum had the right care in hospital when he was born, which was brilliant news. In 2005, or by 2005, both mum and dad were on ARVs and Deborah is still on them – she collects them free. So her health, from that point of view, is really good and the family seem well in that regard.
DS Siya and his parents are happy, they would say. They’re a very strong couple and really dream of getting married one day. But for that Benson would have to pay a lobola, or bride price, to Nonzuzo’s mother of about £1,000. He’s got a fairly steady job as a chef and he’s trying to raise that money. Of course life is very tough but the couple of occasions when I’ve been to see them they’re friendly and aspiring and looking at the next opportunity.
JV It was very difficult for them in the north of Malawi. The one thing which struck me though was that the aspirations were still high, there was still that absolute will to improve life for the children and also for the parents for themselves.
LF For Wyci he still talks about wanting to be a doctor. He did want to be a pilot a few years ago but now it’s a doctor. But the big question is whether he actually gets any education at all. Deborah is not a woman I think that’s going to sit back and … Things have happened but I think she’s quite a tough woman, she’s not somebody that wants sympathy. She was just telling this is just life. And it was difficult. You could see it was difficult for her. The house that they’re in mum’s made it look nice, she’s put lace curtains. She cares about where she’s living but there’s no electricity, the roof leaks. But they do have a water tap nearby which they contribute to the cost of. And she’s had training in tailoring and now she just needs to find the money to buy a sewing machine and the materials. There could be good things. She’s being supported by an organisation called United We Stand that works in Bwaise, so she’s on their radar. Wyci’s on their radar. So I think she’s getting support that she needs which is great.
N He says he loves football because it keeps him fit and he loves running about.
DS Right now, Siya himself is 10 years old and literally wants to become a professional footballer, ideally for Barcelona. That’s like boys around the world, probably not super-realistic. And like some of the other children he’s not yet learned English even though he’s 10, and that could hold him back within South Africa where English still dominates business and politics. But the family overall, they’re on an upward trajectory and Nonzuzo is very determined to get this education and try to become a teacher. From what I’ve seen of her I don’t think she’ll let the normal barriers stop her.
N My aim is for them not to grow up being the men staying … I want to build a better home for them.
DS They’ve got a real shot at it, a real chance. Even though South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world and there’s no doubt it will be very difficult. Unemployment is officially 25%, unofficially about 35%. It won’t be easy but I think Nonzuzo and her husband Benson could get there.
SJ Hannah’s dream is to become a doctor. She wants to do that. She wants to help people. As simple as that. Given where she’s living and how hard her family’s life is, my god, it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult. Zainab, who’s pretty good at maths, got 90% in her last exam. English not quite so good, but her dream is to become a teacher which is quite an impressive one seeing as the school she goes to there are 108 children in her class. By her own, frankly rather difficult, experience of education Zainab is very keen to be a teacher. And I wouldn’t be surprised …
JV The children can now speak. They had nothing to say when they were born and when they were five they were very, very, very shy and now they’re getting their confidence. And now they’re talking with their own voice and so it’s no longer the voice of the parents. They’re not speaking for Malawi or Tanzania or Ghana or anywhere but they’re individuals and they reflect a broader truth about Africa which I think we all recognise. In five years time it will be a different story. They’re lives effectively will have been set.
SJ I think it’s a really good way of putting a human face on these huge overarching global initiatives. Sometimes you miss out on the precise human implications of all this. And seeing a baby when he or she is born, seeing them five years later, ten years later, following the family and hearing about their daily struggles, what’s going well for them, what their aspirations are, what their dreams are – it’s just an incredibly valuable way of understanding what impact the MDGs are having.
JV Once you get involved with a family even if it’s only once every five years you begin to want the best for them in every way. My hopes for the families are exactly the same as the family’s hopes that they will do well, that they will better themselves, that they will be responsible citizens in very difficult circumstances.
KS All of our programmes are available on the Guardian’s website. That’s theguardian.com/global-development and on SoundCloud, iTunes and all podcasting apps. This programme was presented by John Vidal and the producer was Kary Stewart. Until next month, goodbye.
