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Olebelie from SAWIP 2007 Speaking at the Cngressional Forum
“The mission of the South Africa-Washington Internship Program is to prepare, inspire and support a new generation of leaders in South Africa to address post-conflict challenges in the process of building a sustainable democratic society”
SAWIP achieves this by:
• Selecting motivated third-level students from South Africa and training them to serve as an effective leadership team;
• Building a trust between them that transcends racial, socioeconomic and religious boundaries;
• Celebrating the group’s identity in diversity;
• Challenging them to achieve personal and professional excellence; and
• Initiating them as graduates into a wider alumni network that continues to lead through service.
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SAWIP and the Washington-Ireland Program for Service and Leadership SAWIP is an initiative led by Washington Ireland Program alumni, who were inspired by the WIP model of active citizenship and youth leadership to replicate the model for their peers in another post-conflict society. The idea was first conceived in 2005, when alumnus Claire Walshe (WIP04)—working on an AIDS education project in South Africa—was put in touch with a friend of WIP in South Africa, Michael Currin. |
Claire and Michael quickly realized the potential for the exchange of ideas between the post-conflict environments of Northern Ireland and South Africa and the lessons to be learnt between very diverse groups of young people.
With WIP backing, their thoughts and ideas really gained momentum with an exploratory mission during the summer of 2006, when Claire and Michael recruited a third member of their team, Soweto-born Reitumetse Phiri, to join them in Washington for a portion of the WIP summer program. They met with potential funders, supporters, and intern hosts. Due to the positive feedback and demonstrated interest, alumnus Declan Heery (WIP02), and WIP volunteer Bryan Sims added their energies to the mix to explore the possibility of making a SAWIP spin-off a permanent fixture of the Washington-Ireland Program.
In the summer of 2007, SAWIP embarked on a pilot program with the backing of the WIP Board and assisted by a WIP Alumni Seed Grant, as well as private donors. The pilot invited five young South Africans from the University of Cape Town to join their Irish and Northern Irish peers in the WIP’s established internship and leadership curriculum in Washington, DC. The pilot received endorsements and support from the Phelps Stokes’ Fund, the South African Embassy, Congressman Donald Payne and the Congressional Black Caucus among others.
Such was the success of the pilot that SAWIP aims to expand in 2008, with the goals of developing a more distinct and targeted South Africa-specific program, expanding to other universities in South Africa and building a strong foundation for fully independent spin-off from WIP by 2009.
The Need for SAWIP South Africa, like Northern Ireland, has emerged from an embedded culture of violence and oppression but it still remains divided socially and economically. South Africa’s young democracy needs to develop and equip a new generation of leaders with the necessary skills and tools to address these post conflict challenges in the process of building a new, sustainable democratic society. South Africa has a generation of young people eager for the chance to learn about leadership, but unlike Northern Ireland, its youth does not have the same opportunities to do so. Nothing like WIP exists for young South Africans. |
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© South Africa-Washington Internship Program 2008.