My Journey, My Growth.
My name is Katlego Ramagaga and I am in my final year of my journalism degree in the School of Journalism and Media, specialising in radio. In the beginning of August I started spending time with Umthathi Training Project an NGO based in Grahamstown as a participant observer. I wanted to find out what exactly the NGO is about and how people respond to the work. Instead of just quietly sitting in the corner, I found myself interacting with the people Umthathi worked with and somehow being affected by their stories. This here will be the space where I write down what I found out about Umthathi but also my thoughts and my experience of working with Umthathi... this is my story.
Stepping into the unknown...
When I chose Umthathi Training Project to be my case study for my elective I was not sure what to expect. I knew that I was interested in the organization because they helped communities with starting their own gardens but I was not completely sure what else they did as an organization. From reading up on them, I saw that they were involved in a lot of other courses which they offered which included money management and house hold hygiene which seemed good so I was definitely positive about the type of work they produced. Read More
Sho't Left... Touring my Eastern Cape
Home for me is Mahikeng. Its in the North West Province, approximately 1100kms away from Grahamstown. The only travelling I do within the Eastern Cape is either on my way to PE airport or on the late night bus trip going home. I don’t have a car in Grahamstown but I also don’t have time to travel during term time because of all the work that I have, I can honestly say in the four years that I’ve lived in the Eastern Cape I only know three towns which I find myself a little embarrassed about. Travelling the Eastern Cape is one of the things I always wanted to do but never got the opportunity to do so but that all changed with Umthathi. Read More
The Power of the Youth.
With all the different people we met and the different communities we spent time with, I can honestly say I was touched by two communities. The youth groups in Tyutyuza and Upper Regu, villages in Middledrift. The young people I met inspired me to do more with my life than ever before and only because they wanted to change their current situation and their future. Umthathi tries to train people of all ages and really wants the youth to commit because they are the ones who can carry on with training and make sure they train other people in their community. Unfortunately my generation seems to think that anything that has to do with the training that Umthathi is doing is backward, so we were very happy when we found these two groups who were very involved with the training and who wanted more. Read More
Bitten by the bug...
I have always known that giving back was something I loved to do. I have always known that food security and working with the environment are things that I want to educate the world about. Working at Umthathi has been awesome because they combine everything that I have always wanted to do within their organization. Spending the last few weeks with them has helped me grow enormously as a person. It has made me very happy as well, that inner happiness you get when someone says thank you and you know its coming from deep down in their heart, which is very different from the happiness I get when I buy a new pair of shoes which makes me very happy, so I enjoyed that feeling I got cause I don’t feel it very often. Read More