Ubuntu in the Rainbow Nation

Ubuntu: “I am what I am because of who we all are.” -This quote by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee is the essence of what our democratic country strives for and the basis for my assignment this week. For me, the challenges and barriers to creating change in my community is that we have not all yet learnt to work together, we have not all learnt to make our country beautiful because we are still not equal. It is perhaps idealistic of me to want equal rights and equal opportunities given that we are still undergoing transformation as a country, but I am of the strong belief that we should be building in our communities. We should be bringing about an education system that can thrive under a multicultural, democratic society; we should be assisting those that cannot help themselves by empowering them and working for the collective. Whilst we have moved away from classifying people by colour and race, we are moving into a system where there are those that have, and those that do not have. We urgently need to make a bridge between the two and we should start by working in our communities. I would love to bring these ideas to Pulsewire and use it as a forum to enhance discussion on how we can bridge the gap, I would love to make people aware that whilst one form of classification is gone, there is yet another to overcome. I would love to have people from all over the world, looking at what is happening within their own situations and being able to look at other situations, and transferring knowledge to each other. As a young academic and researcher, I feel that I have no platform in which to voice these concerns, as I lack a mentor who I can bounce ideas off. And also, more importantly, I have no idea where to start! Using online communities, would be for me, the start of a discussion which would hopefully lead to action in some form or other.