As the kick off of an exciting cultural exchange we’ll be doing with the South African StudentsforHumanity, we got together in Hilversum. "What would you like to know from a south african youth in Capetown?" Well…. Erhmmm…. What can I say?… A bit hesitant at first, inspiration started flowing pretty soon: “What do you do in your spare time?”, “What kind of music do you listen to?”, “Do you play sports?”, but also deeper questions like “Are you religious?” and “How do you see your future?” A sound basis for a real cultural exchange. Questions that we hope to find answers on, trying to understand the african way of living. And there was great enthusiasm to answer the questions that the <a href=” http://studentsforhumanity.com/about/”>Khayelistha group</a> is interested in. Linde and Darleen will try to explain how the Dutch look at same sex relationships, Anne will write about going out, Lucienne hopes to formulate her biggest dream (and maybe those of others too), Bart will tell you about Dutch traditions and Pim about the role of religion in the Netherlands… but that's just a start! We will have another meeting soon, in which we'll try to answer some of your questions but also think of ...

The online volunteering website http://www.nabuur.com (initiated in The Netherlands) and Studentsforhumanity are cooperating in an exciting cultural exchange (through online media) project. Pelle from Nabuur reports about the first Dutch student meeting (which unfortunately wasn't so successful): Despite the beautiful scenery and the wonderful location in the city of Utrecht, the first Dutch StudentsforHumanity meeting was not very successful. Due to the snowfall, people were advised not to travel by train. As a result, none of the students made it to the venue for the meeting. As most of you are enjoying your holidays right now, this should be a good time to get a few things started however. Therefore: 1. Please send in 3 questions that you would like to ask the South African students 2. We'll have our own blog at studentsforhumanity.com. All we need is a name. Of course we could go by the name Nabuur, but you may have better ideas. BE CREATIVE :-) 3. Next to a name, we could also change our logo. Frerieke told me that the African student on the page can easily be changed with another image. Any ideas? 4. I still think it would be good to meet: to get to know each other, to exchange ideas ...

Refugee VI football club is an initiative by Ephraim Ntlamo 17 years old. Refugee VI is a youth soccer club based in Cape Town, South Africa.  It was formed in September 2009. The purpose of this team is not only to kick some balls around.  According to the United Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR] South Africa hosts some 40,00 refugees and over 100,000 asylum -seekers. A large part of these refugees are unaccompanied children between the age group of 15 and 18 who fled their countries on their own without any friend nor family member. After the xenophobic attacks in May 2008  the relationship between foreign nationals from other African states  and South African local communities became fragile.  As a refugee child my self I thought it would be necessary to form a sport institution that will can be part of the solution towards the difficult integration process and that will also give refugee children something  to keep themselves busy thinking positively about life, bring back the the fun, friendship, self esteem and confidence which I learned we  refugee children miss badly. The real issue that drove me to spend most of my time getting this team together was the fact that refugee children face different sorts of discrimination. This discrimination becomes ...

I woke up in the middle of dawn to sing and dance and curse at the African continent For I couldn’t take no more of the struggling and suffering of my fellow country-men For I couldn’t stand no longer to watch my kind drown dead in HIV, hunger and poverty Sorrow and pain Pain with no gain Africa I mourn African dawn For darkness has now come with peace And a feeling of ease, I go down on my knees to say a prayer, And hope for better, For Africa is my continent For in Africa I have confidence

My vision for our group, Students for Humanity, is that we become active members in our communities. That we bring about positive change in people’s lives. And I take it upon myself to go out there into our communities and find out what exactly are some of the things that we can help them out with. I know of many struggling, community-based organizations that I feel we can assist.  I am also willing to go out there and find people who are willing to donate to or sponsor those organizations, so that they can continue with the good work that they are doing. -- MCYB We, as students for humanity, want to do something important for our communities. So I want to contribute on the orphanage side, because I like working with people and children. To me, helping young people and working with young minds is what I enjoy most. I will also help finding sponsors. -- mfundo I would like to be responsible for the compilation of short stories. I think that it is important for us to express our creativity and not let our talents fade, I mean, it is very rare for one to see young people actually having a short ...

Image under the creative commons by D-G-Butcher From my knowledge and experience of culture up until this point, I can define culture as the shared expression of behaviors and interactions, and affective understanding that is learned through a process of socialization. These shared expressions identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group. Culture is the way one expresses his or her self according to the way of one's family belief-like style of living and it holds the history of one's people. I am a Xhosa child and I was raised under and taught the Xhosa rituals and customs. Some of the practices that I do, I actually perform them because it is a must and I do not even know the meaning of them, nor the idea behind it all. Some of us, as the youth we do not value our culture because of the things affecting us in this generation. – Mfundo My life has been a reflection of what many young people are thinking about culture. For some reason I don’t seem to get across the fact we do things that are different but we are the same. This is the reason I say I ...

The Students for Humanity were part of an exciting discussion that was based on a cultural exchange we'll be doing a Netherlands-based youth activism organisation. The Students were asked, 'What would you like to know from a dutch youth in Netherlands?'. Then we asked them to write down a key word (from the discussion). Key words were scrambled amongst them and they had to pick a keyword from a pile. The keyword they ended up with was the topic of their blogpost today. Here's what they had to say on each keyword (issue): (image under the creative commons by Feuillu) Nosizwe on 'Challenge': If the question was directed to me the first thing that would come to my mind would be how things don’t always go the way I want them to. Now I would say the one challenge that most of us face would be getting our voices heard especially when people don’t even want to listen to what you have to say. We're all faced with different challenges as we aren’t raised in the same families and aren’t influenced by the same things and sometimes the decisions we make are the main source of our challenges. Nontombi on 'Influence': What influences me the ...

I have a dream about my career not dreams like most people do then they got into a cage that they are stuck of choosing at the end on which dream that they must go for. My dream is to be a guy that is dreaming the world of the new technology. I want to work with computers for the rest of my life. Everyday I am on my cell phone because I haven’t own a computer yet, just surfing the net and figuring how it works and how it is operating. Fast cars, I like them so much and even dreaming of driving one. I like racing as I like competing at school, actually doing that with myself. I want to drive. I would love to own a house that is designed by me, because I love things that I own and one day say “That thing was designed by me”. And not thinking of marrying, the reason would be because I love my job than anything else. I also want to be a body builder and even be part of the World Wrestling. By the one and only, Siphe Mananga (Mr. Nice Guy). My dream is to ...

The Students For Humanity got a chance to show their talents, share their thoughts and collaborate with other conscious humanity soldiers at Pan African Space Station (PASS). PASS is an online freeform radio station with a realtime space (on Long Street, Cape Town) where people can meet and talk, perform, play music, laugh, love and create. Check out www.panafricanspacestation.org.za to hear podcasts of what happened on the 13th September. Here's what the students had to say about their experience.