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Special Report |
LAST UPDATE February 27, 2008
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| February 22, 2008 |
Global University Unit I: The Structure of Poverty |
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A house in Nomzamo Park of Johannesburg’s Soweto District, short for the Southwestern Townships
Photo courtesy of Global University |
Stories of conflict and suffering fill the newspapers and televisions of the world today. However, few people see the reality of these conflicts with their own eyes, making them seem distant and disconnected. During Peace Boat voyages, Global University (GU) offers peace education programmes that bring participants face to face with global issues such as AIDS or regional issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict. On the 60th voyage, the theme of the first GU unit was “The Structure of Poverty, Highlighted by a Case Study of South Africa.” Students studied how the structure of poverty remains consistent throughout the Global North and South (developed and developing countries) while onboard, and then went on an Exposure Tour to see for themselves what the face of poverty looks like in the Soweto District of Johannesburg, South Africa. |
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| Guest Educator Koshin Fukushima and Peace Boat staff member Yoko Takayama facilitate a GU discussion on poverty |
The diversity of student background contributes to the unique learning environment onboard, and ages of the 35 participants in GU Unit I ranged from 18 to 81. Korean students Ji and Hyun-Joong, who will receive credit as exchange students from Sungkonghoe University, expressed that they like the GU class format, which emphasizes active learning through discussion and experience in addition to lectures by onboard guest educators. During this unit, participants discussed their ideas of what the world would look like without poverty, and what individuals and nations can do to overcome poverty. |
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GU students visited the Ipelegeng Youth Leadership Development Programme, a community center that assists Soweto youth with job training and counseling
Photo courtesy of GU |
To prepare for the Soweto Exposure Tour, GU students attended onboard lectures and workshops run by guest educators Koshin Fukushima, Naoko Tsuyama, and Michael Mangena. Discussion topics focused on poverty: what poverty is, what causes and perpetuates it, and what can be done to erase poverty from the world. Koshin Fukushima, a South Africa specialist and resident of Cape Town, acted as the primary navigator, or onboard lecturer, for GU Unit I. He lectured on the history of South Africa, the anti-apartheid movement, poverty, debt cancellation, and the creation of an alternative international bank for development in the Southern Hemisphere. |
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Kaori Murakami said she loved waking up to the warm eyes and smiles of her host family in the morning
Photo courtesy of GU |
On the Exposure Tour, students stayed overnight in homes in the Soweto District, a sprawling maze of townships in which black people were forced to live during apartheid. The Soweto Uprising grabbed the world’s attention when people rose up against government policies in 1976. The apartheid era has left Soweto scarred by poverty, unemployment, a lack of education, and high crime rates. Visiting Soweto brought mixed feelings for many GU students, and Setsuko Sakurada, who believes that poverty is an issue not given adequate attention in Japan, said her home stay on the Soweto Exposure Tour was an emotionally rewarding, at times scary, but overall very positive, eye-opening experience. |
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| During the Unit I onboard presentation, GU students used a skit to explain the economic relationship between the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and poverty in the Global North and South |
In a cumulative presentation to share what they learned and experienced with the rest of the 60th voyage participants, GU students explained how the economic relationship between countries in the Global North and South perpetuates the poverty cycle, making poor people poorer and wealthy people wealthier. Students challenged the audience to think of poverty as more than just lacking the basic needs to survive. They introduced the concept of the “working poor:” those people whose basic needs are being met but who are unable to improve their quality of life because of factors out of their control such as government policies of privatization and reduced social welfare, and competitive capitalist social structures. Through Unit I, GU students learned that the social structure that leads to poverty is the same in both the Global North and South, despite its disparate appearance. Our image of poverty often fails to include the poverty which lies closest to us, and GU students encouraged the audience to be conscious of it around them, and to take responsibility as members of the society creating and spreading it in different forms.
To learn more about Peace Boat’s Global University and onboard peace education programmes, go here www.peaceboat.org/english/pced/index.html |
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