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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Hi, my name’s Daria. I’m 23 years old Ukrainian girl. I love smiling, reading books, learning new things, traveling all around the world and universe. In fact, I’m an ordinary girl and I have a gigantic dream-to become a translator and help people understand each other and live in peace and harmony. And I strongly hope to achieve my goals. But there is one thing that I will never be able to do- I’ll never be able use my legs and hands the way people of my age do… I am the first and very beloved child of my amazing parents. They are my great supporters. My parents were looking forward to having a baby but the day of my birth turned into a nightmare for them. The first words my mom heard from the doctors were “Your daughter has no eyes and you should better leave her at the nursing home for disabled people, as  she’s like a vegetable and you shouldn’t sacrifice  your life because of such a child”…You can only imagine my mom’s horror after such terrible statements. Although she was lost for words but in her heart she knew that she would never leave her daughter…Some hours later it turned out that I did have normal eyes but there was something wrong with my legs ...

I am Iran Masebeni and I live in Cape Town in a big township called khayelitsha I live with my Aunt, half sister, 2 cousin sisters, 1 cousin brother my Uncle with his 2 children. I am currently doing grade 11 in COSAT (Centre Of Science And Technology). When I was young living with my mom never knowing who my father was, calling everyone who comes in to my mother’s life my “father” so at that time I was around the age of 5. I tried to ask my mother that , who is my Father , but she would always ignore as if she didn’t hear me but all of that to me it seemed as if she doesn’t care if I know him or not. MY STORY BEGINS!!!! Once lived a boy whose name is Iran in a very big family of 10 people that his grandma, mom, his mom’s twin sister, his mom’s twin sister had 4 children his mother 3. This was the house of joy nothing was ever wrong. They were not rich, actually , they were poor but that did not stop them because each and every time they would look after each other in hard times ...

Mlamli: Do you have a life when you don't have confidence, don't believe in your self and when you have a low self esteem? This a question that we need to ask our self as people and as a nation. We as nation have struggled in the past but we don't realize that we are still struggling. We are not struggling as a nation, we are struggling to gain confidence. We do not gain confidence if we don't encourage, love and care for one another, we would have a better nation were we as the people stand together to create a better South Africa. So by giving someone words of encouragement each day, you are making a difference in someone else life. All we need is support and we need to start believing in our self. The change is not in the government it is in us we need to change our selves to make our country better. Mfundo: The One. I woke up one day asking myself if am I the one, The one who is recognized by the world, The one who sets goals and achieves them, The one who wakes up every morning knowing his ambitions The one who is the one. Many ...

By Ntombie Ntuntum The website has been an inspiration to me, to read about other learners story and to learn things about how they feel about their community, how they see things in this world. But I'd love to know what other teens (except us students for humanity members) are seeing the world that we live in. It's quite interesting to see passion of writing about their life. I like the fact that we also educating people how to communicate in Xhosa, I think it would be fun if we could all know how to speak our 11 official languages, imagine I speaking Venda don't you think? By Siphe Mananga I just want to communicate with the students around the world and let my voice be heard. Let people know what as the students of South Africa are doing to encourage other youth and share our views on politics, sport and education. The thing I want is to learn the most important things, because not everybody knows it all no matter how wise you are. I want to be able to teach, be a leader and make I can serve the community on what I have in hand. I want the site to ...

We all want to be accepted, to be loved, but sometimes we take things to the extreme. We do things we wouldn't normally do, just so we can feel accepted, loved and most of all needed. But is it worth it? When seeking for someone's attention, hungry for their love and in need for the person to notice you, you end up doing things you wouldn't normally do even if you are asleep. Trying to get the persons attention becomes an obsession, an addiction. You stop caring for yourself, give no attention to your actions and how they will affect you. Your mind stops thinking about everything else and everyone around you, all you can think of is, what else you can do to satisfy your addiction. Your life stops being your own, you live for someone else. Not aware of how you are not paying any attention to yourself and how much you've stopped serving yourself. How much you've lost control of your own life. You don't notice this, to yourself you are just living a normal life, and your addiction doesn't even exist. What will it take for you to realize you've lost control of your own life? The brain that ...

"If you have it flaunt it" But how do you begin flaunting it if it's the one thing between you and your happiness, the one thing between you and your dream? How do you flaunt the one thing you hate about yourself? I'm roughly 46 kilograms, 1.6 meters tall, I hate having to go to the scale. Hate everyone who makes positive comments about my body. People comment about it almost everyday telling its ‘sexy, beautiful and they would love to have it'. Every time people make the comments I just put a smile on my face and pretend to be grateful for their comments. Hiding what I really feel. Every time I see an advert on the television about how one can loose weight, be lighter, basically have what I have, tears, anger, hatred pile up inside. I ask myself why they have to talk about the one thing I dream about as if its trash, as if having it is a sin. I stare at the screen dreaming about how I would look if I were the one who had that weight. I've tried everything I can think of in order to gain some weight but nothing works, for me. I ...

My name is Siphenathi Xashimba but most people call me Sam. I live in a township near Cape Town called Khayelitsha. I'm currently in grade 11 in the Centre Of Science And Technology (COSAT). I live with my grandmother, mother, sister and niece. My father and my older brother both passed away. I'm going to tell you about my experience in the dangerous streets of Khayelitsha and how I lost my friend. The streets are always dirty and smelly. There are shacks which are built close to one another and there is poverty every you go. But those are not the problems that can take a persons life. CRIME that is most serious problem in my community which I feel like it needs to be stopped on matter what. People die each and every day, killed by gangsters and its either they are shot or stabbed. I have been robbed many times and luckily never stabbed or shot at. I have always stayed away from places where I feel uncomfortable at and also stayed away where I see trouble approaching. Teenagers are the ones that do most of the crime in my community but they never kill, it is the adults that ...