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.