Itipini Community Project & Mthatha Mission

clipped from www.youtube.com Itipini Community Project clipped from mthathamission.blogspot.com There are several people I see regularly around Itipini who are about my age. It is impossible to look at them and not think about the wildly divergent paths our lives have taken since 1982. Often they have a child (or children), many have HIV, virtually none has a high school diploma, none has a formal job, and all live in tumbling-down shanties that barely deserve the word. As I’ve gotten to know them over the months, I’ve realized many of them are also quite talented, funny, intelligent, and hard-working, and, really, not all that different from me. What’s been different, of course, is the opportunities available to us by virtue of where we were born and where and how we were raised I had access to supportive parents, good schools, and an economy that produced opportunities like this one, among a whole host of other advantages. My peers in Itipini had almost none of that clipped from mthathamission.blogspot.com My high-school English students clipped from mthathamission.blogspot.com Noncedo Mthunsikazi Nonzuzo Luleka Nonhlazo Ayabonga Lindiwe

I've been following Jesse Zink's blog Mthatha Mission for many months. When I ran across the video today, which incorporates some of his photos, I put the the video and Jesse's excellent blog together to share both with others who may not know of the work being done to help the people who, by accident of birth, live in the Itipini community outside Mthatha, South Africa.