South Africa & Sweden, my 2 homes, my 2 loves
by TANIA SINCIC, DIRECTOR, AFRICAN SUNRISE VOLUNTEERING
Since 2008 I have travelled between South Africa and Sweden. For the first 4 years I spent most of my time in Sweden, saved up money and then went to South Africa for 2-3 months every year. In South Africa I did voluntary work with homeless people, street kids and troubled youth in different areas. It is all linked to what I do in sweden. I have been working with refugee kids in Sweden since 2008. Those who are under 18, arriving alone, with no family. A lot of these children have had to leave their families in their home countries or in other countries close to the home. Most of them have seen war and other things that you and I can not even try to imagine.
What I do in Sweden is a payed job. Its governmental, payed by taxes, social wellfare. It’s my job. I make money from it. But this is not why I do it, if it was, I could have chosen something that payed better, didn’t have strange working hours and that I never had to think about after I left the office.
I do this because I love it. I love my job. I am one of the lucky ones to have a job that I love. It never felt like a job, it feels like a part of my life.
Since 2012 I have lived the opposite way around. I am in South Africa for 9 months and then in Sweden for the summer, about 3 months. I am lucky enough to always have a job to go back to over the summer. They need people to fill in for the people going on vacation over summer so there is always a lot to do for me. Again, I am lucky!
(Last year I stayed in Sweden a bit longer. I ended up going to Hungary, Serbia and Greece to witness and work voluntary with the refugee situation at the EU borders. But this is another story that I would love to share another time. I do not wanna make this post a smaller book)
Every summer I participate in a walk through Sweden to stand up for refugee rights and try to make more people to see how unfair the system in Europe is at the moment for those running from war and oppression. There are thousands of people living hidden and illegally in Sweden today, that have nowhere to go. These are things that are in my life every day, through work and also a lot through friends that happen to be refugees and immigrants.
When I am in Sweden I also make time to go and see some of the schools that are sending interns to South Africa through us. Some universities and some other education facilities more like the one I went to. Social work and treatment on a more practical level with lots of internships during the education.
At my last job in South Africa I built up a lot of good relationships with these schools and when I decided to start African Sunrise with CJ they wanted to come with me. The Swedish connection was more important than a name of a company/organisation. The safety of having a Swede based in South Africa, that is also educated and has knowledge of social work in Sweden, is something very few companies and organisations can give to the universities. So I am proud to have built up these relationships and that they trust me!
I do also spend my time in Sweden to meet up with some individuals that might want to come and volunteer. I tell them my story, how I started as a volunteer/intern and fell in love with Cape Town and been working with this for 8 years; and I will be there to make sure they feel safe. I tell them about different projects, what they will learn and how they can help people in the best way.
Sweden is one of the countries in the world that donates most money to organisations and people all over the world. Maybe it is guilt? Because we have had such a great life. We feel obligated to give back? Maybe it’s how we are raised, with politics where even the rightend side of the politics seems like socialism if you compare with The US for example. High taxes and a social welfare system that is built on an idea that we help each other and share what we have so that the country will work well. For everyone. Which leads to a stronger economy..
I do what I want to do in Cape Town and feel like it is for the right purposes. I see big companies that charge people silly big amounts of money to come and actually help out and work for free. This is why I left my other job in Cape Town. We did not over charge, but the money and time was spent on the wrong things. I never felt that I could jusity to my clients where the money went, things were not set up the way I wished them to be. There was no developing mindset for the organisations and people that actually wanted it.
CJ and I have now started to built up a company where we use the money we make to have time to do more and more fundraisers, to work in the communities and make sure that the volunteers and interns that come through us really make a difference and at the same time learn something. You can say that they donate money to us so that we can build up a bigger community for helping more people. I like that idea. The more people that come through us, the more money we get to spend on getting more time to help out and and the more people we get involved, the better this is! I love it.
Of course I wish we didn’t havet o spend money on an office, on a car or at salaries. But the truth is, we need to have those things to run this and to be able to take good care of the volunteers and interns that come over. At least I can promise that no one is getting rich from this. Not in money at least. We are all getting rich in other ways, like love, laughter and friendships !
You see, I love my job in Cape Town too.
Lucky. Very very lucky.
Since 2008 I have travelled between South Africa and Sweden. For the first 4 years I spent most of my time in Sweden, saved up money and then went to South Africa for 2-3 months every year. In South Africa I did voluntary work with homeless people, street kids and troubled youth in different areas. It is all linked to what I do in sweden. I have been working with refugee kids in Sweden since 2008. Those who are under 18, arriving alone, with no family. A lot of these children have had to leave their families in their home countries or in other countries close to the home. Most of them have seen war and other things that you and I can not even try to imagine.
What I do in Sweden is a payed job. Its governmental, payed by taxes, social wellfare. It’s my job. I make money from it. But this is not why I do it, if it was, I could have chosen something that payed better, didn’t have strange working hours and that I never had to think about after I left the office.
I do this because I love it. I love my job. I am one of the lucky ones to have a job that I love. It never felt like a job, it feels like a part of my life.
Since 2012 I have lived the opposite way around. I am in South Africa for 9 months and then in Sweden for the summer, about 3 months. I am lucky enough to always have a job to go back to over the summer. They need people to fill in for the people going on vacation over summer so there is always a lot to do for me. Again, I am lucky!
(Last year I stayed in Sweden a bit longer. I ended up going to Hungary, Serbia and Greece to witness and work voluntary with the refugee situation at the EU borders. But this is another story that I would love to share another time. I do not wanna make this post a smaller book)
Every summer I participate in a walk through Sweden to stand up for refugee rights and try to make more people to see how unfair the system in Europe is at the moment for those running from war and oppression. There are thousands of people living hidden and illegally in Sweden today, that have nowhere to go. These are things that are in my life every day, through work and also a lot through friends that happen to be refugees and immigrants.
When I am in Sweden I also make time to go and see some of the schools that are sending interns to South Africa through us. Some universities and some other education facilities more like the one I went to. Social work and treatment on a more practical level with lots of internships during the education.
At my last job in South Africa I built up a lot of good relationships with these schools and when I decided to start African Sunrise with CJ they wanted to come with me. The Swedish connection was more important than a name of a company/organisation. The safety of having a Swede based in South Africa, that is also educated and has knowledge of social work in Sweden, is something very few companies and organisations can give to the universities. So I am proud to have built up these relationships and that they trust me!
I do also spend my time in Sweden to meet up with some individuals that might want to come and volunteer. I tell them my story, how I started as a volunteer/intern and fell in love with Cape Town and been working with this for 8 years; and I will be there to make sure they feel safe. I tell them about different projects, what they will learn and how they can help people in the best way.
Sweden is one of the countries in the world that donates most money to organisations and people all over the world. Maybe it is guilt? Because we have had such a great life. We feel obligated to give back? Maybe it’s how we are raised, with politics where even the rightend side of the politics seems like socialism if you compare with The US for example. High taxes and a social welfare system that is built on an idea that we help each other and share what we have so that the country will work well. For everyone. Which leads to a stronger economy..
I do what I want to do in Cape Town and feel like it is for the right purposes. I see big companies that charge people silly big amounts of money to come and actually help out and work for free. This is why I left my other job in Cape Town. We did not over charge, but the money and time was spent on the wrong things. I never felt that I could jusity to my clients where the money went, things were not set up the way I wished them to be. There was no developing mindset for the organisations and people that actually wanted it.
CJ and I have now started to built up a company where we use the money we make to have time to do more and more fundraisers, to work in the communities and make sure that the volunteers and interns that come through us really make a difference and at the same time learn something. You can say that they donate money to us so that we can build up a bigger community for helping more people. I like that idea. The more people that come through us, the more money we get to spend on getting more time to help out and and the more people we get involved, the better this is! I love it.
Of course I wish we didn’t havet o spend money on an office, on a car or at salaries. But the truth is, we need to have those things to run this and to be able to take good care of the volunteers and interns that come over. At least I can promise that no one is getting rich from this. Not in money at least. We are all getting rich in other ways, like love, laughter and friendships !
You see, I love my job in Cape Town too.
Lucky. Very very lucky.
