A DFL Scholars Story
April 14, 2011 Butana “ Peter/Tosh” Molefe, a 2011 DFL Scholar, was involved in one of our DFL Projects, before joining Drama For Life. In his article he tells us about his path to the Soweto Kliptown Youth (SKY) and his duties there.
My involvement in SKY
Soweto Kliptown Youth foundation (SKY) is a non-governmental and a nonprofit making organization based in Kliptown, Soweto. SKY was founded by Bob Nameng who, as a young man, had a difficult upbringing and ended up living in Kliptown at a centre run by a lady called Eva Mokoka. Bob then took the lessons learned from Mama Eva and applied them and thus, SKY was born.
While volunteering for Love Life in 2001 I was amongst a group who went to a conference in Washington DC, USA. We were then taken to SKY to see the work of a young South African who went to the ends of the world to realise his dream of creating a platform for other young people in the ghetto.
After that day I was moved greatly by Bob’s work and vowed to return to SKY one day. In 2006 I moved to Kliptown. Honestly, I had forgotten about the promise I had made of returning and bringing gifts to SKY. However it was later on in the year that a friend would take me back to SKY and rekindle the love I once had for the place.
The place was not as I saw it before and I knew then that my involvement was important and needed. It took me a couple of months to get to understand exactly why SKY existed and what it did on a day to day basis.
At present I am working for SKY as a project manager, mentor, coach and brother to many of South Africa’s children who find themselves at SKY in search for a better tomorrow.
My responsibilities are many, from preparing meals for the 74 children that live at SKY to running rehearsals with the children and preparing and constructing different proposals that in turn help bring resources into the centre.
My most recent Drama work as a theater practitioner was a performance in a project called X-Homes where I was performing for a number of former GTZ and Goethe Institute dignitaries, theater lovers and practitioners. The production was assembled by Manuel Enrique Orjuela Cortés a film director from Columbia.