CTV in South Africa > Harry O'Brien shares his Soweto experience

PHOTO GALLERY > Collingwood visits Soweto

On Sunday a group of players and staff travelled to Soweto, a large district containing approximately 3.6 million people just outside of the centre of Johannesburg here in South Africa.

In Soweto we really learnt about the real South Africa.

We’ve been very busy over here training really hard, but on Sunday a large group of us had a great chance to see the effects of the recent history of South Africa, and experience the massive socio-economic differences between South Africa and Australia.

Many townships in Soweto count as some of the poorest in Johannesburg, and indeed all of South Africa. One of the main issues facing this part of South Africa is AIDS, with the virus claiming some 800 lives in the region every day.

Our first stop, as explained to us by our guide, was one of the poorest areas of Soweto. However, as we experienced, the people are doing it really tough but have their own grip on the community and they are controlling commerce.

Everyone’s happy and the sense of community there is really strong.Electricity exists in parts but often is not properly supplied, but one amazing part of the township we visited was the way they have embraced tourism and identified it as a means of increasing their own quality of life.

Tourists and tourist groups, like ours, are welcomed in to this particular community, and are encouraged to make small donations while experiencing what life in Soweto is all about. Locals set up stalls selling African mementos and then contribute a considerable portion of what they make back to the community money pool, which is used to fund toilet facilities and help families pay for food.

From there we made the move to what was formerly Nelson Mandela’s house before he went to prison for 27 years, and also a short period after it. It is located in Orlando West, Soweto, and is a humble dwelling by our standards, but is in an area referred to by locals as the ‘little Beverley Hills’ of Soweto because of its relative affluence.

For me, personally, before we even entered the house, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I know for everyone else that experienced it, it was just an amazing place, such positive energy, and you knew so much went on in that place, and it was a really significant part of history.

The third and final place we went to, which was amazing again for all of us, was an orphanage just inside Soweto, where we met many kids affected by the harsh realities of South Africa, including HIV/AIDS, a lot of abuse from parents, and kids that have been abandoned.

The first kids we saw were ranging in age from one month old to two years, and they were all actually asleep, and as we were walking through they started to wake up, and by the end we were all holding kids, and all the kids were so happy to see us.

For me it really hit home that we’re all so lucky to not have to experience that on that large scale in Australia. It really lifted our spirits being there, and also we lifted the kids’ spirits.After seeing the youngest kids, and waking them up, we made our way out to the yard where the older kids were playing in the playground. There we gave them caps and t-shirts, some of us played basketball with them, some of us showed them our iPods which they had never seen, which was sensational to see some of the kids dancing along to some of the beats on our iPods.

Just to see everyone in high spirits, even though these kids have experienced some of the toughest things that most of us in Australia would never experience, they were just so happy, and it just shows that no matter what situation you’re in, there is always someone else worse off.

One thing that really stood out from the whole experience for me was the amount of strength that a lot of people can have together, and that really hit home for me in my position in the team at Collingwood, is that together, everyone working in the same direction, can really achieve something, and that’s what I saw in the communities, that these people had nothing, but they were all working together for one common goal, which is survival.

Their common goal has brought them together and they’re managing to survive… for example, not having correct toilets, or one parent dying. Just people working together and pulling the slack, and that’s something that we’ve all taken out if the South Africa experience here at Collingwood, and we’re going to put into practice for 2008.