Introduce and contextualize: My name is Joan Daries and I manage Mthimkhulu Community Development – a programme of The Grail Centre Trust in Kleinmond, South Africa. I grew up in a working-class family during the dark years of the struggle for democracy in our country. I am the 4th child of 10 children, so our home was always full of activity and noise. My hardworking parents were devoted to raising their children and living out their deep Christian beliefs through service to our local church, neighbours and our local community. They always impressed on us the value of a good education, independent thinking and having the courage of our convictions.
This meant that becoming actively involved in the struggle for democracy was inevitable for us. My career as a high school teacher was during the worst years of the struggle as high schools were the battle grounds. Our school premises was a site for military manoeuvres designed to strike the fear of God into the hearts of our children. I have had to stand at the graveside of too many children whose lives were cruelly cut short.
It is from this context that I left teaching to start working in the NGO sector with no real experience in community work. However, it was a seamless transition because of my pedagogical background and my grounding in Christian social justice principles.
By the time I did the Training for Transformation short course in 2023, I had the lived experience of all the theories of development from pious charity and toxic charity to social welfare, to western based logical frameworks of inputs and outputs expected to equate to outcomes, to transformational development that views individuals and communities as their own agents of change and transformation that is deep, intentional and truly empowering.
I loved the opportunity to be in a group of participants from many different countries and intergenerational as well. We had so much in common and the sharing was great. Face-to-face training would have been ideal to deepen connections and build more friendships.
The most impactful lesson to me in my personal development journey with Training for Transformation was delving into the wisdom of my elders and my ancestors. I had never spent time in thinking about the “old ways” of doing things and solving problems, as this wisdom is preserved in an oral tradition that I had cast aside as quaint, but not really relevant to our times. They are the stories of old people.
I am now “old people” myself and I am the storyteller to my grandchildren and surprisingly these tech savvy children want to listen to the stories of the past.
In TFT I learned to appreciate the storytelling that connects across the generations and builds ties that bind families together and creates community cohesion, which is essential in building community resilience. I have become more intuitive and confident in what sits at the core of my being.
The most important learning for me through TFT has been that transformation whether on a personal or community level is not linear, it can be a bit messy in that many missteps can happen, as this is where one learns best and as long as one keeps on learning from the mistakes you will make progress towards the desired outcome.
As I work with vulnerable young people, I am always pleased when they are able to pick themselves up and start all over again. For instance, one of the young women who went through our Youth Development Programme, left the programme with high hopes of going to the University where she had been accepted. However, she did not have the funds she needed. She took a job as a shop assistant earning a meagre salary, but she had hoped to save money for her studies. Some months later, I encountered her looking very depressed and I asked her what was up. “Oh, mama!” she said. “You know this black tax thing is getting me down.” Black tax is colloquially known as the obligation a working member of an impoverished black household has to carry the financial burden of the whole family. In this position, she was never going to be able to fulfil her own dreams. I asked her what she could do about solving the problem, and while she still looked dejected, she said she would try to work her way through it. I saw her again a few months later and her whole demeanour was different and she told me proudly that she was going to study as she had found a way to do so. She thanked me for reminding her that she had a dream and that she shouldn’t give it up. I was thrilled that she had found her own way out of despair.
It would have been so easy to try to solve her problem for her by intervening on her behalf, but that would have robbed her of an opportunity for growth.
TFT has influenced my management style tremendously. Human resource management in South Africa has strict legal frameworks and in disciplinary matters I have often found it necessary to abandon the rule book when it will not solve the underlying problem. I had a case where a grievance was lodged against a supervisor. In getting to the bottom of the matter it was clear that there were childhood hurts and self-esteem issues at play on both sides and just issuing penalties would not solve the problem. I recommended counselling as it would be a more constructive response than the penalties the law prescribed.
One of the most important aspects of the TFT approach are the modules that empower people to recognise the structural and systemic frameworks that is at the heart of social and environmental injustice in the world. We are living in very troubled times where humanity is facing an unprecedented storm of multiple global crises. It seems like the struggle for social and environmental justice is just wishful thinking. What power can ordinary citizens exercise against this scale of injustice?
TFT teaches us that we have the power we have always had. The power that exists in our numbers and when we use our voices, our ingenuity, our own personal and collective assets and abilities to shape our own local environment and build our networks across nations we cannot be subdued and subjugated. Our instincts are for survival and a future for our children and our grandchildren.
