Plenary, 21 Jan 2004
Meeting date: Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Official Report
384KB pdf
Time for Reflection
The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Mrs Sheena MacGillivray, deputy head of Nairn Academy.
Mrs Sheena MacGillivray (Deputy Head of Nairn Academy):
Last summer, I was one of 34 global teachers recruited by Link Community Development to work in schools in the Eastern Cape. Living for five weeks in that poorest province of South Africa gave me plenty of time to reflect on what was important to me. It reinforced my belief that the most important thing in my life is people.
My Xhosa family—the Gomos—were wonderful, and they and my colleagues at Welsh Senior Secondary School gave me real insight into their life and culture. These people are living with the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. Their education system is still suffering from years of neglect, when African schools received one tenth of the money allocated to white ones. How can children learn to value education if for years they have been told that no matter how hard they work and how many exams they pass, they will never be anything more than a manual labourer?
Death is never far away from these people. I experienced the trauma of a stillbirth in my Xhosa family, and was left to wonder whether things would have been different with better medical treatment and decent roads. I was part of an AIDS awareness programme, and tried to get people to talk about the issue as well as change their behaviour.
It all sounds very depressing, yet there is hope. The village is in the process of having electricity installed, and I am hopeful that, through local fundraising, I may be able to help them get clean water. Working with charities like Link Community Development, which has a permanent presence in the area, and new district chiefs means that education can only improve.
However, they still need our help, not just in the form of money, but in the giving of our time. Living and working with people gives the volunteer so much. Although it was a tremendous professional development opportunity for me, I think it has given my Scottish community more. With the benefit of my first-hand experience, I have been able to provide materials to enhance a number of school subjects and, through photographs and talks, highlight issues such as fair trade and the importance of clean water.
Scotland has always been an outward-looking country, and it is great to see my pupils keen to find out more about the world. They would like to link with my African school, and would love to organise an exchange programme. I am keen to encourage that, as I believe that it is through direct personal contact that we can make the world a better place.