Johanne Tietböhl (19) enjoys life in SA while working in townships
The young girl from Germany said that she really enjoys being around the children and making a difference in their lives and will take everything she learned and experienced with them back home.
Johanne Tietböhl is a 19-year-old woman from Germany who left her family and friends behind to work and live in South Africa, specifically in a township, for a year.
She is a volunteer who, in co-ordinance with the Luthern Church in Hermansburg, Germany that partnered with the Luthern Church in Wesselton, grabbed the opportunity to work with children in this township.
Growing up in Hamburg, Germany in a protected environment, her family and friends were not sure that she was doing the right thing to spent her gap year so far from home.
She added with a smile that people in Germany still think of South Africa as a country where the lions and elephants walk in the streets and that the German media paints a very negative picture of what is happening here.
The water crisis in Cape Town, for example, enjoyed a lot of coverage and she was surprised to see that the problem was not a countrywide one and that water was freely available in Mpumalanga.
She was also amazed by the diversity of South Africa and although she cannot speak the languages, she understands a little Afrikaans and Zulu and gets along quite fine.
While her friends are spending their gap year in France and London, she chose to come to South Africa to learn more about the country and its people.
She lives with Gogo Thabo and thanked her for taking her into her home and for making her stay with strangers a pleasant one.
She also said that she feels safe in Wesselton and Ermelo and that she will definitely go back and change the way people in her home country think of South Africa.
Johanne works as an assistant teacher and Peter Mabuza School was her first stop.
At the school she learned about Children of the Dawn, met Petros Zulu and the children he looks after and very soon became part of their lives.
She helps children who grow up with family members because their parents are no longer around, to do their homework and also teach them to play chess.
When she is not busy with the children, she helps out in the kitchen and the office.
Children of the Dawn was set up by concerned people and the organisation’s goal is to give back a future to these affected children.
They provide the basic means of survival, such as food and schooling, to the orphans and vulnerable children.
Johanne said she really enjoys being around the children and making a difference in their lives and will take everything that she learned and experienced with them home.
Her family came to visit her in March this year and she showed them around and made them experience life in a township.
Visits to Cape Town, Durban and the Kruger National Park made her aware of the differences in the provinces and she gathered memories that she will always treasure.
After returning home in August, she plans to study education because working with children is all she ever wants to do.
She hopes to follow a career that will bring her back to South Africa and wishes to stay in touch and does not want to break the relationships she built here.
In conclusion she said that, while taking a break from the everyday live in Germany, she learned a lot about herself and what she wants to do with her life and how other people see her.
She advised young people to take a gap year before they make career choices that will change their lives.
