In their efforts to build a strong multiracial democracy, South Africa's new leaders face some daunting challenges. An advanced economy requires an educated, highly skilled workforce, but one of the chief legacies of apartheid is a black majority that largely lacks these traits. Providing black South Africans the education they need to participate successfully in society is essential if the new South Africa is to flourish, and the best place to start is with the children.

With only slight modification, the same paragraph could describe the situation in America's inner cities. So it is probably not surprising that, on July 25, a group of South Africans visited Philadelphia to learn what is being done to meet the challenge here.

The visit was part of the Youth Service Study Tour, a week-long tour of four East Coast cities sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The 14-member tour group included members of national and provincial youth commissions and government education officials, all of whom are working on developing a model for a youth service program in South Africa.

Six members of the tour group spent the day in West Philadelphia as guests of the WEPIC Replication Project and the Center for Community Partnerships at Penn. The group observed WEPIC's community-school programs in action at Turner Middle School, compared notes with their American counterparts on how youth service is organized and supported, and sat in on a Penn class that explores how urban schools can help revitalize their communities.

The members who visited here were National Youth Commission deputy chairperson Nomfundo Mbuli; Lumka Nongogo, a university student and National Youth Commission member; Thembekile Machelesi, chairperson of the Youth Commission for Eastern Cape Province; Pierre-Jeane Gerber, a member of the South African Parliament from Western Cape Province and that province's youth commission; Neo Masithela, a Free State MP and head of the Free State's Youth Commission; and Nono Dumile Maloyi, deputy chairperson of the North West Province Youth Commission.

The group's day began with a visit to the WEPIC/Burger King Summer Camp at Turner. The group spoke with teachers and students who produced a community newspaper, saw students in the camp's health education program do a drill routine on healthy habits, and viewed scale models of neighborhood landmarks constructed by campers. The morning ended with a play written by the campers called "The Choice is Yours," which promoted effective conflict resolution and pregnancy prevention.

The afternoon was spent on the Penn campus, where the participants met with Penn faculty and students who teach service-learning courses, Penn staff involved with WEPIC programs, and local community leaders over lunch. After lunch, the group sat in on the history course "Revitalizing Urban Schools and Their Communities: West Philadelphia as a Case Study," taught by Center for Community Partnerships Director Ira Harkavy and Penn Program for Public Service Associate Director Amy Cohen.

Mbuli noted that the commission's youth service proposal seeks to develop communities as well as skills. "We are interested not only in skills training," she said, "but in setting up service programs where the participants give back to the community as well as learn from it."

Masithela also noted that the commission's goal in establishing these programs is "not to disadvantage those who already have advantages, but to improve conditions for those now disadvantaged."

In both respects, the South Africans thought that what they saw at Turner fit their goals. Masithela told Penn officials at lunch that, in the group's final report to South African President Nelson Mandela, they would recommend using WEPIC-style partnerships as a model for a South African youth service program. "I was very impressed with the role of university students as partners doing community service and linking it to academics," he said. "I also liked the idea of education being linked to community problem-solving."

While the South African youth service model and the WEPIC model share similar goals, there will be significant differences in how they are reached. Masithela noted that in South Africa, "because of the past uneven quality of public schools across the country, our education policy will be set at the national level," and support for youth service programs will follow that pattern.

Masithela's characterization of South African public schools also applies to schools in the United States, but as WEPIC Replication Project Director Joann Weeks explained, "the tradition in the United States is that education is a local matter, so programs like these originate in the community instead of being created by a central government directive. It also means that local groups have to leverage funding from a number of sources to support these programs." The Burger King Corporation's three-year commitment to funding the WEPIC summer camps and the involvement of Penn students, faculty and staff in WEPIC programs are examples of such leveraging of resources.

Overall, the group was impressed by both the philosophy and the operation of the WEPIC summer camp. And the city impressed some group members as well: Nongogo said, "I like Philadelphia better than I did Washington [where the group began and ended its East Coast tour]. It reminds me of my hometown of Johannesburg."

Return to Compass Features for September 3, 1996