“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” - Winston Churchill

After our last SAWIP debrief we all walked away feeling the same appreciation, joy and sadness as we did upon leaving Washington D.C. just a little over two months ago. It was amazing hearing from everyone what their highlights were, there was a huge sense of appreciation and humbleness in the room as our time together as a team drew to a close. In all honesty I still can’t fully comprehend the fact that I went through this incredible experience. If someone had told me a year ago I would be a part of this program and be the person I am today, I surely would have laughed at them. But here I am and fascinated by the amount of growth that I went through. What was most inspirational was the letters we received from management. These letters were from ourselves to ourselves written at the start of the program on orientation camp. Upon receiving it most of us had long forgotten what we wrote down, but as some of us read it, we could not help but be moved to tears by our own words.

I really felt that I grew immensely in the last six months and this letter genuinely affirmed that. This is the first paragraph I wrote down in the letter to myself and before I had passed my undergraduate degree;

“I want you to know that you did it, you broke the pattern, raised your standards and reached the highest mark of your young academic and personal career. Right now I still feel a little insecure and unconfident, but you will have acquired the confidence and positive attitude to make a change.”

These words accurately reflect my experience and growth on SAWIP. We all have grown so much. If I just look at some of my team mates and compare how they were the first time we met on selection camp to the people they are now, it’s a significant difference. We love to say that we are so different than we were, but I would like to say we are more the same than we have ever been. We are more our true selves than we ever were before, all that changed is the opinions and stigmas of others, we carried around with us, has fallen away and we have revealed unto ourselves who we truly are. It’s absolutely impossible to put into words the impact SAWIP has had on all our lives. I hope that these blogs, although they don’t do justice to it, will to some extent convey how we have grown.

Thank you once again to everyone who has made this a memorable experience.

Three months later and I find myself being stuck in an idle mind. Even though I think critically about things and generate ideas, that’s just about where it ends; I don’t act on my ideas and whenever I do it is usually to the wrong thoughts. I found myself leaving things for the last minute so that I could feel some resemblance of excitement and motivation to get something done. I soon became bored and frustrated with myself; this was followed with guilt for not working as hard as my SAWIP team mates. But of course for me the hard work was a thing of the past and I felt entitled to this resting period. I never understood why it is said; “Never allow victories to become obstacles”. I understand now that victories can as quickly turn into obstacles as the adversity that stood between oneself and those victories. It is an inconvenient truth, but one must work tirelessly and never rest for too long after an achievement, because it’s when we are in a state of rest that being comfortable sets in, and being comfortable leads to mediocrity.

Coming back to South-Africa after such a fantastic experience was wonderful, but also challenging, because what waited was a different challenge than that of D.C. Surely nothing and no one could have prepared or warned me of the impending trap that lie waiting in the midst of my home; it was the trap of mediocrity and indifference, and of course coming off the rigorous curriculum in Washington D.C. I was inclined to rest for a while, but not too long. I did, however end up resting too long. I could blame a number of things; the fact that it was the winter season upon returning, reverse jetlag, having passed my degree and only doing one subject this semester. And how does one keep the momentum of that phenomenal D.C journey coming back to South-Africa after such a rigorous programme? I literally had no reason to get up early or work hard, because the worst was behind me, I just had to wait to graduate end of this year and that was it.

Through falsely believing that I had done all I could do, I fell into a state of mediocrity and passivity. I slowly blended back into a passive society, into a normal and ordinary life. I did not realise the so called ‘rest’ I thought I am entitled to, would swiftly turn into quicksand of indifference and passivity. But remembering that I am a part of SAWIP and being around the team makes me realise how extraordinary we are and how extraordinary we can be, if we live responsibly. Being responsible for who you are and who you want to be.

When people talk to me they always ask; “What was it that made you change so radically as to motivate you to rise out of poverty and be able to go to Washington D.C? How did you do it?” I can never give a satisfactory answer to this, because I myself do not know how I did it. However, the ‘How’ wasn’t the most important thing, it’s ‘Why’ that is the right question to ask; why did I do it? And in light of this question I began to unravel within myself a sense of another transition. But what is there to transcend through when I have transcended my circumstance? What is left to conquer? Did I not achieve my goal of obtaining my degree despite the odds?

There is one transition all of us should go through at one stage of our lives; the acknowledgement and acceptance of who we truly are and bringing that forth into physical reality. I find myself at the brink of this transition. Although I have gone through so many challenges before, it is clear nothing is as difficult as facing oneself and acknowledging change needs to happen. It is true, only when we understand the difficulty in changing ourselves do we understand the difficulty in changing others. We as the change agents of our country need to be fully aware of the significance of this universal truth, because only then will we become the change we want to see in the world.

We recently had the pleasure of meeting with a U.S based youth development program called Urban Alliance. This non-profit serves up to 500 young people in the cities they operate and provide leadership, mentorship and internship courses for these high school graduates coming from disadvantaged communities. It was refreshing interacting with these passionate group of high-school youths on their way to college. Throughout our dialogue about similarities and differences between Urban Alliance and SAWIP, challenges that face our respective countries and cultural differences, I was taken back to my high school days and remembered a similar organization that invested in me. I stopped to think about how we have been informed on Africa’s potential and South-Africa’s potential in particular in the past few weeks and I wondered how many organizations like Urban Alliance and SAWIP are out there investing in the youth.

We always here on South-Africa’s natural resources and potential for economic growth, but seldom we here people speak on the potential of the youth in South-Africa and their potential to influence social change. I feel programs like SAWIP and Urban Alliance are custodians in what will be the next big investment; the youth. Sure enough SAWIP and Urban Alliance are different from each other on so many levels, but I’m drawing a parallel between their willingness to invest in young people. What dividends will these two organizations gain? Can they draw up a projection of returns to investors over 5, 10 or 20 years into the future?

One thing I have come to recognise is the leap of faith programs such as SAWIP and Urban Alliance take. There is no guarantee that the young people they invest in will generate expected returns in ways money can’t match. There is no projection of outcomes based on trends that they follow. There is only trust, hope and faith. Yet as history has shown, these intangible forces are of greatest importance, and as programs such as SAWIP and Urban Alliance will show, these forces generate dividends that far outweigh any monetary value. We as the SAWIP class of 2012 and everything that we will obtain after this incredible experience, will be the living breathing dividends to the entire world. Our impacts will bellow to the rest of the world and corporates such as Wall street that they missed the boat. When they invested in monetary value of companies, investment into people has surpassed returns of that made by companies.

I reckon human investment, particularly youth investment will soon grow into a self-sustaining market. We, currently in these programmes will be part of the pioneers opening the door to this market which will ever increase and serve as the new way to make social change. But the responsibility is on us to live up to that investment and prove to the world that youth investment is the key to social and global change.