Context #MariannridgeCom

Context refers to the encapsulating environments within which individuals live(e.g.; family, friendships networks, peer group, neighbourhood, workplace, school, religious or community organization, locality, cultural heritage and norms, gender roles, social and economic forces.). These structural forces shape the lives of individuals.

Contexts influence our lives at least as much as individual characteristics do. This is not tosay that personal characteristics do not matter or that individuals are not responsible for their actions but to recognize the impacts of contexts.

Context has become something very critical for me to be aware of both as a professional and on a personal level because it helps me to partially understand the reason behind peoples actions. As stated above, even though contexts influences our lives, the characteristics of an individual still plays a role in the decisions we make and therefore context and characteristic cannot be separated.  Just to clarify what it is I'm thinking I’ll make an example.

When we see someone trip on the sidewalk, we often think “how awkward” we're never sure if we should laugh, look away as if we didn't see it or offer help to show our sympathy. It’s just an awkward thing to see. But we seldom look to see if the sidewalk is flawed. This is the same when working with people, we're so quick to judge each other because of what we see (appearance) that we hardly take the time to explore the context that helped to shape who they are. It may be cliché' but it’s true that we need to be kind to the people we meet as each is fighting a hard battle. 

With this is mind I decided to share the context I grew up in that helped to shape me with my fellow colleagues. When doing so, interestingly enough I began to find a lot of similarities between Mariannridge (the community I’m working in) and my home town Lamontville. Just to give a brief history of where I’m from; I’m a Pedi girl from Polokwane that grew up in Lamontville (Durban) with my gran and cousins. My home is a 4 room flat on the top floor and growing up I thought living on the top floor was pretty cool. Growing up I can’t say I ever remember ever needing something, or ever having to “sacrifice” something because my gran couldn’t provide, actually my childhood is filled with lots of good memories of being afforded everything I needed. When I think about growing up and family, all that ever comes to mind is food and love (I had so much of that growing up). And I only got to understand what a family consists of when I started attending primary school at a coloured primary school in Wentworth.  Growing up; to me family was my gran and my cousins.  But somehow I always knew that mom lived in Polokwane. Mom for me meant the lady that would visit at most 4 times a year and she’d come with gifts (clothes, shoes, toys money etc). And it would be the same for the rest of my cousins and their moms (My Aunts) and it would be fine, it was our norm. Societal norms of family only got to me when the school teacher would ask me if my mom or dad was coming to the parents meeting, or if I’d remind my mom to sign the consent form; even friends at school started talking about their moms and dads. It was such a foreign concept to me because back at home this was not the norm for me.  Obviously I can conclude to say it bugged me then (had me questing why I wasn’t living with my mom and dad like the rest of the children), but now that I’m older and I know better, I realized that it’s a unique family context I grew up in that has helped shape the person I am and the person I aspire to be. 

Family context is just one structural component that helped to shape me, what still remains is the community context, the neighbourhood, society, friendships and peer groups I had formed growing up (just to name a few). As previously stated, all these structures and more have helped me become the person I am today. I believe I was able to adapt more easily to the community of Mariannridge because of the context I come from and due to similarities that existed between the two communities i.e.; poverty, unemployment, teenage pregnancy, uneducated youth, drug manifestation among the youth, sexual harassment and abuse etc. I mean I grew up in an infested environment where the air was thick and filled with the smell of dead dog and dagga. I lived to hear the screams of the aunty living next-door as her husband would beat her up almost every day, and then relive the experience as my friend would tell me about how his father hit her mom.  Growing up I knew the difference between the sound of a gunshot and that of fireworks; lived with rumours of stolen cars parked next door where police would interrogate my gran to find out if she knew anything. That’s where I’m from; but I don’t wish to have come from anywhere else because what I got to learnt from the people I interact with (my lectures and my colleagues, my clients and my friends) is that it doesn’t matter where you come from, what matters is how you use what you know; because one can come from the most conducive context and still have a shitty life and vice versa.  We as individuals have to acknowledge that others, situations and experiences have helped shape the people we have become. At that we then are obligated to use our knowledge and experiences to positively shape others.

The Last Kick Of A Dying Horse: #MariannridgeCom

I make reference to this metaphor as it best describes exactly how I feel. As I begin my last block at the community of Mariannridge, I feel like it’s the last bit of energy rush I’ve got just before I drop down dead. After having to endure such stress and academic institutionalization from the last 3 block (Psych, Paeds and Physical) this block has got to be the one to rekindle the fire within my gut, put the smile back on my face and be one to grant me the time to greet people with the real interest to find out HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?.

When I started my 4^th year in OT, I had prayed and hoped that the last block I get to do would be the community block. And guess what, that exactly what I got. And when I heard it was Mariannridge, I thought even better!! (Coloured community? shouldn’t be too bad I thought haha) I was excited at the idea that I’ll be working in the community towards the end of the year even though I wasn’t quite sure of what that entailed, I just knew that it was supposed to be fun, challenging, worthwhile and fulfilling. So I was ready!

Week 1 at the community has passed, totally different from the other blocks I tell you. Day 1 felt like uhm….so where do I begin here? Thank God we had a handover day a week before heading into the community; because that kind of helped with settling nerves and uncertainties about what needed to be done. But even so, GETTING STARTED wasn’t as smooth as I had hoped. None the less, it was a good first week.

Day 3- 10/09/2014 was the day where things seemed to be picking up. On this day two of the girls I work with in the community and I got to meet the Speech and language Pathologist that will be working alongside us in the community. We read hand-over projects again and delegated/allocated the community projects accordingly. Later on during that day our supervisor came into the community to help us get a better understanding of the community and TO guide us on possible projects that we can take on in the community. One of the projects that stood out for me was a graphic design project. The project entailed us and professional graphic designers instilling hope into the community through the use of murals and inspiring quotes on the buildings of the community. When she initially presented the idea, I was taken back a bit. Maybe because I felt that it was a big project to take on; or whatever it might have been. But when I actually put some thought into it, I realized that it’s actually such a fascinating concept, the more I thought about it the more I loved it. I’m interested to invest my energy into it and to see how far it can actually go.

Day4-11/09/2014 was perhaps the most interesting of the week; probably because I got to do something I wouldn’t have done out of free will. I got to attend a seminar about “Interdependency at the interface: state housing and people’s practices in Johannesburg.” presented at the DUT by Dr. Sarah Charlot. It was insightful because it was able to highlight positive and negative systems that have been placed to produce the relevant numbers of RDP house in JBH. But what I found most interesting was the states/governments lack of understanding when it comes to community contexts. While I can’t claim to be an expert in understanding community contextual influences, it became clear that the governments antipoverty strategy though RDP housing was actually producing adverse effects as it ultimately resulted in thick fledged townships or what Americans would refer to as Ghettos. When what they should be hoping for is producing communities. The government needs to understand that providing a basic human need of shelter does not result in empowerment, they need to understanding that such only provides a foundation for potential and understand that person empowerment is more sustainable in when attempting to improve living conditions and poverty in our country.

Just before I could realize, week 1 at Mariannridge community was over with not much done, if I may do say so myself. But at least I had the hope that the little that can be done will be done thoroughly because I have been giving a good foundation and good hand-over to be confident enough to work with the community. And remember, the last kick of dying horse can be the most powerful.