Believing in a Place Called Zembeni

By Denis Campbell

“Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times... that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils. In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free. In 2005, there is a unique opportunity for making an impact. Tomorrow, here in London, the G7 finance ministers can make a significant beginning. Do not look the other way. Do not hesitate. Recognize that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision."

Nelson Mandela
Trafalgar Square
February 3, 2005

200 kilometers southwest of Durban, South Africa sits Dududu, one of several rural cities on dusty, golden sand-filled hills long forgotten by apartheid. It is a place of broken hearts and shattered dreams. Thanks though to a remarkable pilot program here in the primary school system with a dynamic emotional healing tool called The Journey, it has filled hundreds of 5 th-7 th grade students with hope where there was once only despair. The challenge is fulfilling that hope and Mr. Mandela’s words before losing yet another generation.

Dududu, Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) Province

Dust-filled, pock-marked gravel roads here carry few cars. This is a place where one moves from place to place mostly on foot. Shoes are a luxury item, quickly outgrown or worn fully through. Water and firewood are both carried long distances. While a single electricity line runs through this city, few can afford to connect to it. Sanitation and nutrition are unimaginably poor by any 21 st century standard. This region is a holdover from an apartheid era more than a decade gone and still proving difficult to eradicate.

The mostly black or coloured children (so labeled under apartheid classification system) know poverty, loneliness and despair. This was and is an isolated and forgotten area. Even with a decade of new-found freedom, they are isolated and poverty stricken. The children walk up to 5 kilometers one-way to school, often in darkness. They only attend school if their family can afford to pay the fees for lessons and uniforms. For most, it is in their school the only warm meal of each day comes. Weekends, far from being anticipated for fun time off, are dreaded for the long and hungry interval.

The song from the Broadway musical Les Miserables says, “at the end of the day you’re another day older and that's all you can say for the life of the poor.” Said schoolteacher Xolani Kwela, “it’s tough to see a family of 5-10 children living in one hut with no blankets, no food, no beds and knowing there is nothing we can do... it is overwhelming sometimes”

The poverty driving their world also brings an unspeakable meanness. Sullen silence becomes the gate that dams and locks up so many emotions behind a seemingly impenetrable wall of despair. This despair grows from the violence children grow up with all around them as they feel and see the toll hopelessness takes on the adults in their world. It’s a place where grandparents instead of enjoying the fruits of a life lived longer than most, face the daunting task of doing it all over again as they try to raise their children’s children.

Parents without work leave the village to find it. Many walk the long dusty road to Durban where they often vanish and are never heard from again. Others send money back after working back-breaking jobs for little pay and in both cases their children grow up never knowing their parents. For those who stay, the frustration of too many mouths to feed leads to alcohol and drug abuse, the fear of HIV entering their world, violence, crime, sexual abuse and the reality life in Dududu dishes out in daily doses.

Most believe life is getting worse and look for something, anything that can give a shred of hope.

A Beacon of Hope

Every city on a hill has a shining beacon that draws people closer. The shining beacon in Dududu is the Zembeni Primary School a place where 615 students share crowded classes under the direction of just 14 teachers.

It is one of eight schools that recently completed a year-long national pilot test using a program called The Journey, based on the book and work of American authoress Brandon Bays.

For 6-months, a controlled research study monitored by Dr. Nirmala D. Gopal of CEREP University of KZN, Durban yielded dramatic changes and results. 99% of all students and teachers felt it was an important program and that all students should have this opportunity. During the test, their social and academic improvements were off the charts. The response from teachers, students and parents showed that students were able to access deeply embedded emotional traumas, bring them forward and heal them. The same work Brandon uses around the world with adults to cure physical and emotional issues, were used on 5 th – 7 th grade students throughout the test group.

Championed in South Africa by Journey Ambassador and former school teacher Jayshree Mannie, she single-handedly brought this program to the attention of the former Minister of Education & Culture after informally testing the program on her own class of students and dramatically healing her own adult acne and daughter’s life-threatening allergies. The government sponsored the test program and the hope is by this Fall’s term, The Journey will become a regular part of the primary school curriculum.

Jayshree Mannie and Brandon Bays speak about The Journey for Children

We refer to The Journey process as a guided fairy tale adventure that takes them anywhere from 9-20 minutes. They begin by visualizing a staircase with 10 magical steps, walk (most run) down them, where they open the door at the bottom and meet their favorite action or favorite cartoon hero which is their higher self.

They then get into their special magical space vehicle and it goes into the body and lands in a particular organ (we have to be very specific in saying – no crash landings!).

They are then asked to look around that organ and listen to an emotion or feeling coming from it. What cellular biologists have learned is if an emotion is not healthily expressed, the cell receptors actually shut down.

What the journey is about – is allowing you to feel your emotions fully and release them. A memory is elicited and the child calls all the people that were part of that memory and experience and they set up a campfire in that particular organ. The purpose of the campfire is to empty out all the stored emotion and for forgiveness to take place so the child hears what the other person has to say from the level of the personality and also from the God within, from the diamond inside.

We then give them resourceful states in a bouquet of balloons and ask them to replay that situation or memory now using all of those extra resources. Then we ask them to take out their flashlights, look at the organ and see how it is changing and many children will say, “it’s bright, it’s shining, it’s sparkling” and we tell them it will continue to heal perfectly automatically of its own accord.

When we give the children the chance to draw and express their feeling before and after the journey process, before they did the process the drawing is normally of a heart all filled with black marks and scratches, and that is how they were feeling before the process.

After the process we ask them to draw how they feel, we often see a clear beautiful heart full of roses and flowers and they say something like, “I am happy now” and from these pictures we can gauge the impact it has had on them.

We also use positive affirmation to allow the children to feel what it feels like to be spoken truth to and for many children they have never heard this for a lifetime and they take it and start living from that truth

The essence of the Journey is that we are all born as this flawless pristine diamond and something happens along life’s path where the diamond that we are gets covered up. The Journey is a simple step-by-step means of clearing away all those emotional blocks so you, as the flawless pristine potential that you are, can shine again. The result from the Journey process being used in the different pilot schools is so heart-warming.

I have no idea how I got so lucky to be involved in this work I am doing right now. Wherever it needs to go, I just allow Grace to lead it.

Click here to learn more about The Journey’s work in the South African Public School system. You can also view an 8-minute video documentary from the SABC Program Free Spirit.

The Angels of Zembeni

Lubé Balungile has taught for 18 years in the Zembeni school and Xolani Kwela for the last 10. In a recent telephone interview for CNE, they were asked about their work.

CNE: What are some of the differences you have seen with the students?

Lubé: The difference is without The Journey the learners lived with their problems inside. Now, since we began, we are working hand in hand with the children. We used to just worry about teaching the curriculum, now we work hand-in-hand with them.

Xolani: Their needs are so very basic. We cannot help them financially and yet we see so much abuse, poverty, children with no clothes. We just do our best.

Lubé: Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad because I can help them understand but I cannot go to their homes and help them there. They come to school with problems and then go back home. We help them get through and forgive, we help them cope.

Xolani: We try to provide and support these children beyond filling their heads with knowledge. We (teachers) bring clothes from home, buy them some food and yet we cannot afford to help all of them. The teachers each bring 1-2 children home with them during term break to give them the experience of a loving home environment.

CNE: What were the issues affecting the children?

Xolani: They used to be so afraid to talk about their problems. They have now become more friendly and tell us whatever they want to say. Also their class work has improved. They were very scared and reserved before.

Lubé: Many were sexually abused by their relatives. We have several orphans and they have multiple issues. Some were left by their parents and are staying with friends and that has affected them spiritually and morally.

Xolani: When the learners open up to us there are issues we cannot help them with. I was doing a process with a young girl who said – “I don’t have anyone to take care of me, no food, abuse, no beds, I sleep on the ground.” I don’t know what to do then.

We must first help ourselves

Lubé: We also cannot help the children if we are not helped ourselves. The Journey has helped me to face so many issues in my own life. I worked through my own issues and I can understand theirs much better than before.

I also enjoy working much more now than before. The children really look forward to that 1-hour in the morning when we do Journey processes – the children are the ones to remind us when they have not done their journey.

Xolani: With The Journey I was able to come to terms with issues surrounding my father and mother. I am now able to speak with them and understand what they were going through and the relationship has improved. I also had an issue with my uncle. His father committed suicide and I came to understand he did not come to terms with his own issues. It changed our relationship, I was able to forgive him.

Taking it forward

Lubé: These children were so corrupted in the past. We tried and introduced so many things to change their behavior and only the Journey has worked. We still need help, so much help here. The learners don’t know things about the outside world, they don’t know computers.

The parents are now in a state of wonder – they come to the school and say you have helped our children, can you help me? Now the teachers are working on their own to help the parents. They are so scarred and now we feel it is high time to talk to parents so they will understand their children more. We want to help the parents because they also have issues.

We also want to go into the churches. This community is so poor. We have children live on granny’s pension. A woman came to us, the grandmother, with 5 kids. She was so desperate wanting anyone to adopt the children because she could not provide food or anything. We see that every day. Children who cannot even start school because they have no clothing, no money for fees, nothing...

CNE: How do you find the hope to keep going?

Lubé: We have hope someday things will change, somebody will be touched, somebody will come with help and that you can tell them the situation and they will respond, we have that hope.

Xolani: It affects me emotionally, they open up hoping they are going to be helped somehow and I cannot help them financially. The abuse, poverty, no clothes, it is almost too much sometimes.

CNE: How did you become a teacher?

Xolani: It is such a blessing for me to contribute to my South African community. I do my level best. Teaching for me is a calling. I became a teacher to contribute something to my community to prepare these children and make them responsible members of my country.

Xolani: We have problems in our society; we need help because of the poverty, the starvation affecting our learners.

They have nothing, maybe your readers can make a financial donation. Come and visit our school and see how difficult the situation is. Please just help to bring a smile to the faces those learners.

I came to know and love these Zembeni angels and their colleagues for their spirit. It is palpable from the moment one steps off the airplane that there has been a galvanizing taking place in this country. While problems persist, there is a hope embodied in a nation whose national anthem has stanzas in the four languages most spoken throughout the land (see inset box 2). South Africa is a true melting pot that heals daily through the power of forgiveness and has a love and desire that is so strong, the flame of it engulfs everyone and everything.

When I asked Lubé how she finds hope, she replied, “we have hope someday things will change, somebody will be touched, somebody will come with help and that you can tell them the situation and they will respond, we have that hope.”

So do we Lubé, so do we.

To obtain a mailing address to send clothing, food or other items to contribute to The Zembeni School via The Journey Outreach, please contact The Journey office closest to you by clicking here.

© 2005 Denis Campbell, used with permission of the author

Read Denis' "Knocked to my Knees" article.

South African National Anthem

isiXhosa/ isiZulu

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

Lord, bless Africa
May her spirit rise high up
Hear thou our prayers
Lord bless us.

Sesotho
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.

Lord, bless Africa
Banish wars and strife
Lord, bless our nation
Of South Africa.

Afrikaans
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,

Ringing out from our blue heavens
From our deep seas breaking round
Over everlasting mountains
Where the echoing crags resound.

Sound the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

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