Walls and Leadership Path to Success
Posted by Sarah Whitney and Claire Bristow, Fellows
There are walls!
Construction is moving along. The community hall has walls, and we are thrilled. We even spent the afternoon sitting inside the new building just getting used to it!
Azaph Sithole is the senior member of our committee. He is an Elder and therefore is well respected by the community. The group of Elders in Uta work to help the local traditional leadership to guide the community. He has worked his life to support his 14 children, all of whom have successes that their father can brag about. He has a reputation across Uta of being able to provide excellent life advice, some of which we’ve had the opportunity to witness. As an Elder, Azaph has helped us bridge the gap between traditional leadership and Uta’s future leaders. When the planning committee needed to secure permission-to-occupy from the local chief for the land, his role allowed him to help the group navigate this system and made that process possible.
Azaph announced at our last committee meeting that he would take it upon himself to survey the building site at 5am Friday morning in order to begin construction on the community hall fence. Azaph has been getting price quotes for fence materials from local hardware stores.
The original and most basic purposes of the community hall are to hold meetings and facilitate pension distribution. Azaph is an example of a member of the community who collects pension from the government but is currently is unable to do so in a comfortable environment where he and others can be protected from sun or rain. The government will be able to use the community hall as a pension site so that mothers and the elderly will be able to collect every month in a secure location. Azaph’s leadership in the community and in the planning committee is a blessing and his commitment to the project has been an inspiration to the rest of the committee as well as to us.
