Canadian Cooperation Centre

Feature Stories

2400 students find inspiration at Leribe Career Fair

Hlotse-Leribe, Lesotho – May 7th 2010 – This past Friday over 25 Leribe high schools attended the first ever ’LEAP’ Career Fair, held in Leribe District. The event, funded and organized by local non-profit organization ‘The G.R.O. Foundation Lesotho’, provided Leribe’s Form D and E students with career information and inspiration for their future academic pursuits. Over 30 Lesotho based tertiary institutions, technical colleges and professional representatives were made available to discuss career options and academic opportunities with the students. In addition, career and community role models presented 40 minute discussions to students highlighting the activities and benefits of specific careers. These included; police work, military service, nursing and medicine, health counseling, accounting, business and several other attainable career choices.

The G.R.O. Foundation Lesotho presented the event as part of the newly launched LEAP initiative (Lesotho Educational Advancement Program). This program focuses on ‘bridging the gap’ between high school and tertiary education by providing students with information on academic and career resources available to them in the Kingdom of Lesotho. Many Basotho students, although successful in completing their COSC exams, fail to move on to higher education due to lack of information or direction in planning their next steps. Through the provision of academic leadership clubs, a career resource manual, and via district wide career fairs the LEAP program seeks to assist students in making the jump to further education.

The Leribe district career fair, held on May 7 2010, was the inaugural LEAP career fair event aimed at connecting students with academic institutes and Lesotho’s business leaders. The event was hailed a success by all in attendance – with many calls for the event to be replicated in neighboring districts. Teachers, students and presenting guests described the event as ‘well organized’, ‘rich in information’, and an ‘invaluable resource for students planning their futures’.

The G.R.O. Foundation Lesotho and its’ local partners would like to extend their sincere thanks to; G.R.O. Canada, The Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, the Lesotho Ministry of Education, the Lesotho Ministry of Youth, Gender and Sports, the Leribe office of the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Leribe District Administrator, the office of the Leribe Chiefdom, the Leribe District Council, the Lesotho National Security Service, the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (Leribe District), Nedbank Lesotho, the Lesotho Agriculture College, Kick 4 Life, Sunrise Theatre Group, and all of the students, teachers, volunteers and presenters that made the event a success.

The event’s slogan was ‘A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step’ and it appears through the LEAP Career Fair, many Leribe based students have taken a step towards a more positive future.

The Women’s Leadership and Training Programmes

The Emthonjeni project was launched in rural Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN) in 2007 in response to traditional cultural practices that violate the basic human rights of girls and young women and dramatically increase their risk of HIV and AIDS.
Practices such as “ubusoka”(young men seeking status by having multiple partners), ”ukuthwalwa” (the abduction of young women and teenage girls for marriage),and “umhayizo” (a form of “bewitchment” of girls and young women by boys or young men) have been identified as practices that must be abolished. At the same time, factors such as poverty and the socialization of girls and young women that increase vulnerability to these practices must be addressed. Under this project, the WLTP seeks to educate community leaders (some of whom are complicit in these practices), traditional healers and church groups of the risks posed by ubusoka, ukuthwalwa and umhayizo, and at the same time to reduce girls’ vulnerability by increasing self-esteem, improving gender relationships, and through economic empowerment.

Zanele’s story
“I was fourteen years old when I got abducted. It was 10:00pm when my cousin came home and asked my mother to allow me to go to his home. Outside, five men grabbed me and took me with them screaming and fighting. They sang very loudly so that no one could hear me. They promised not to kill me and told me not to cry. I didn’t sleep that night. I was shocked and traumatised by the incident. My husband-to-be sent people to my home with ilobola. I hoped that my father would refuse, but to my great disappointment he accepted the lobola and agreed that I could stay with the man without even hearing my point of view. Since that day I have regretted being with that family but it didn’t help. It took me two years to accept my husband. I was too young to differentiate between love and acceptance. I felt so humiliated and powerless as if I was nothing but an object for family income generation and to fulfil other people’s happiness. I had dreamed of being a professional nurse and helping my family especially my mother who had worked very hard to provide for us. I hated the thought of being like her. She was always sad. I wanted to be a very happy woman but my dream was smashed. I didn’t finish Matric. I have struggled to bring up my lovely children after the death of their father. That has made me hate what happened to me even more.

I’m still struggling even today to bridge the gaps in my education and to be healed emotionally, spiritually and mentally. I still want the best for my kids and I would fight to death if anyone abducted my daughter Nokukhanya or if my son Swelihle abducted a girl. I am aware of women’s rights so I would charge the perpetrator regardless of what people said. The difficulties I went through taught me to be independent and not to try to buy other people’s favour. I will fight not only for my own children but for all girls in my community”.
Zanele Ngcobo 32 (Emthonjeni Project Trainer)

Research and testing: Rabies in South Africa

Enhancing diagnostic methods used for testing for rabies in South Africa through collaborative research and learning from best practices

Rabies is a disease of great public health importance in most developing countries, including South Africa. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) more than 55 000 people die of rabies each year and about 95 per cent of these deaths are in Asia and Africa.

Most human deaths follow a bite from an infected dog and, of great concern, 30 to 60 per cent of the victims of dog bites are children under the age of 15. Although wound cleaning and immunisation if done, as soon as possible, after contact with the virus, can prevent the onset of rabies in just about all cases, once the signs and symptoms of the disease appear, there is no treatment and the disease is almost always painful and fatal.

Dr Claude Sabeta, senior research scientist and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) expert for rabies, is from the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) based in Pretoria. He is committed to contributing all he can to help combat rabies.

"Rabies particularly affects resource-poor communities and in South Africa about 30 people die each year from the disease," Claude explains. "In South Africa the incidence of rabies varies from year to year and from region to region, depending on vaccination practices and dog densities. Dogs and wildlife including the bat-eared fox, yellow mongoose and black-backed jackals are vector species of the disease. Given the large dog densities in rural areas, communities living here are vulnerable, but there is also a threat to tourism particularly if there is a spill over of rabies into conservation areas such as the Kruger National Park.

There are three laboratories in South Africa that deal with rabies testing, two focused on animal rabies and one focused on rabies in humans. "The Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI) of the ARC is one of these rabies-testing laboratories and it handles approximately 110 rabies diagnostic requests for the Fluorescent Antibody Test (FAT) a month. Increased volumes, due to an enhanced awareness of the disease in the community and increased surveillance, as well as the need to meet its mandate as one of the world reference laboratories meant that we had to look at ways of improving our research.

In order to make these improvements, the Agricultural Research Centre applied for and received funding from CIDA and then sought the assistance of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to help it improve its rabies business processes." Claude goes on to explain that the CIDA Technical Exchange Facility provided the financial resources for a technical co-operation programme centred on training South African staff in rabies diagnostics, production of anti-rabies conjugate and related quality control issues. "This resulted in new, improved processes and better service delivery and an enhanced profile of the ARC in Africa," he says.

The first area of focus was the introduction of an improved method of rabies diagnosis. In the past OVI used mice as a back-up test to the fluorescent antibody test (FAT), the first-line method of diagnosis. Although reliable, this test is slow.

"Following training from CFIA, this methodology has been replaced by a cell-based tissue culture isolation method. Instead of isolating the virus in mice, cells susceptible to rabies infection are used. Consequently, the turn-around time for diagnosing rabies has been reduced from twenty eight to five days. The intervention has also increased confidence in the test results. This improvement is particularly important for the diagnosing and appropriate management of rabies in humans. The ARC is now training other African scientists in utilising this and other diagnostic tools for rabies diagnosis." Secondly, South Africa uses the Monoclonal Antibody (MAB) technique to identify the type of rabies viruses. This tool helps in differentiating variants identified in the many host species in South Africa and the region. In addition, information gathered through MAB typing helps track geographical movement of the variants, as well as identifying recently emerged variants. This information provides valuable data for formulating vaccine control strategies. For instance, if there is a spread of a canid variant (a variant that opportunistically moves through both domestic and wildlife host species) then it is advisable to create buffer zones through vaccination so that the emerging strain does not spread further. However, in instances where the particular strain does not affect humans such as the mongoose strains, these are then not considered of great public health significance. Since such spill over infections in domestic dogs result in dead end infections, outbreaks through this variant do not cause panic.

Thirdly, the biological conjugate - one of the key components in the FAT - is now being produced in-house. "Our Canadian counterparts at CIFA trained us on how to make the conjugate," says Claude. "This has reduced the cost that ARC incurred buying commercially-produced conjugate and it has allowed the ARC to tailor its requirements. Furthermore, after the skills transfer, the ARC is now selling the conjugate across Africa and even to some European countries."

"We have been to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency twice," Claude continues. "The first time was in September 2006 and then again in November 2009. Our Canadian colleagues have visited us a number of times and each interaction has been very valuable. We share our experiences and collaboration is an excellent way of keeping up with current trends."

Moreover, other good news is that this training and new technologies have improved service delivery by increasing the reliability of results, along with improving turn-around times for certain tests. It has also strengthened the credibility of the ARC as a reference laboratory and training centre in Africa. Finally, the project strengthened the partnership between ARC and CIFA, which now includes collaborative research.

Empowering the fishing communities

Empowering the fishing communities in the coastal areas through knowledge interchange

Masifundise Development Trust is an independent, non-governmental organisation working with small scale and traditional fishing and coastal communities mainly in the Western Cape. The organisation has also recently started working with representatives from fishing communities in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Masifundise is the only non-governmental organisation in South Africa working with fisher and coastal organisations and has been engaged in advocacy and policy development for the past eight years.

South Africa is a country with kilometres of beautiful coastline and abundant marine resources, but commercial fishing industry and poaching are taking their toll on the natural marine resources. Traditional fishing communities who rely on the sea are increasingly under threat as their livelihoods are eroded. After 1994, attempts were made to redress apartheid imbalances and fishing permits were granted to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) candidates to try to diversify the racial and economic profile of the people benefiting from the country's resources. Unfortunately, many traditional small-scale fishermen lost out on the permit allocation process and for the first time many families who had relied on the sea for generations were unable to fish legally.

The new policy and subsequent allocation of permits has contributed to massive unemployment and boredom particularly, among young men. As a result, the levels of poverty amongst these communities had risen drastically as their source of livelihood has been taken away from them. With lack of any other skills, but fishing, and the need to provide daily sustenance, the non-permit holders have resorted to illegal fishing activities. Consequently, the policy has been counterproductive as the dwindling marine resources that it is meant to protect are now being depleted at a faster pace.

Masifundise Development Trust is working with the communities in order to redress the situation. “We have used CIDA funding to build capacity within traditional fishing communities,” explains Jackie Sunde from Masifundise. “People feel very emotional about being stripped of their fishing rights, but we are enabling them to think critically about their situation and empower them to assert their human rights and to seek solutions in conjunction with government departments. So far we have held two workshops with leaders from the different fishing communities. The first meeting was held in June 2009 and the second in October.”

The workshops provided a platform for the fishing communities to raise many of the issues they are facing. For Jackie what stood out was the way community leaders were able to engage with each other and look beyond their personal experiences to those of the broader fishing constituency. And, for many, the workshop provided them with insight into another world as fishing communities in the Western Cape are very different from those in KwaZulu-Natal.

As part of the knowledge interchange, CIDA has funded an exchange programme which enabled two First Nation community members from Canada to visit traditional fishing villages and attend one of the capacity building workshops. Leaders from South African fishing villages were able to share lessons and to learn from the Canadians experience of organising and advocating for their rights to natural resources. Central to this networking were the lessons that were shared on how to promote food sovereignty amongst traditional harvesting communities.

In addition, CIDA's support for the project has also helped produce, A handbook towards sustainable small-scale fisheries in South Africa: Promoting poverty alleviation, food security and gender equity in small-scale fisheries. The draft handbook was distributed to the workshop participants who then provided valuable feedback on the content and approach to policy making. Several of these leaders are represented on the national small-scale fisheries policy task team and the handbook will be used to empower leaders and community members to participate fully and effectively in this policy development process.

One of these leaders, Ebrahim Yusuf, is accustomed to rising at 3am - well before sunrise - and making his way down to the sandy beaches of KwaZulu-Natal. Ebrahim explains, “in the Durban area, a once vibrant and economically sustainable fishing community was destroyed and stripped of their fishing rights in the 1950s. Sadly, these rights have not been restored to us."

Currently, Ebrahim and other fishermen are using recreational permits to avoid being prosecuted, but there are lots of restrictions. “We fish to put food on the table,” he says, “but if you can only catch four fish a day, there is no way that you can pay for transport and bait so you end up poaching to make ends meet.

“The workshops run by Masifundise were very helpful. They afforded me the opportunity to meet and share with other fisher communities. I'm lucky because I'm relatively empowered, but policy-making is not my job. Now we know we can contribute to policies that affect us. We need to stand together to get policy makers to listen to what we have to say. You always think people are like you, but the coastal communities in South Africa are very diverse. What unites us is that we just want to support our families and continue to fish as we always have.”

Unfortunately the Department of Marine and Coastal Management, South Africa (the government department responsible for managing marine resources and interfacing with the communities) did not support this initiative. Sadly, they would not allow their field workers to attend the workshops. “This was a huge disappointment,” Jackie explains, “because it would have been the perfect opportunity to learn from each other and grapple with the issues together. We could also have focused on building a civil society and government partnership, which would have been groundbreaking.”

A case study: Traditional Leaders vs local Government Officials

Developing policies that serve the people while also improving working relations between traditional leaders and local government officials: a case study of the Canadian model

Sweltering KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and icy Toronto might seem worlds apart but as Heinz Kuhn, manager of Legal Services at the KZN Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and his colleagues discovered on a recent trip to Canada, they share some important similarities. As a province, KwaZulu-Natal faces many challenges, including enormous poverty and lack of infrastructure in rural areas. Finding innovative solutions is what took them to Canada and Canadian International Development Agency's funding enabled them to visit Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

"In KwaZulu-Natal, we are grappling with legislation dating back to 1889," explain Heinz. "It needs to be re-written, but before drafting policy we wanted to look at examples of other countries that were similar to South Africa to see what they had done and learn from them. Of all the countries we studied – including India and New Zealand – Canada stood out as the best example. Not only is it run efficiently, but we share some striking similarities. Like us, they have traditional leaders who are influential and have to be consulted when making important decisions that affect the communities they lead. What's more Sir George Grey - once governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner to South Africa - moved from South Africa to Canada and we share a similar legislative framework as far as traditional leaders and institutions are concerned."

"Traditional leaders in South Africa play an important role in local government affairs," continues Heinz. "In Canada First Nation leaders are treated with a lot of respect and participate fully in municipal affairs. The Canadians have found a very constructive way of involving their traditional leaders to ensure efficient service delivery and management of local affairs."

In South Africa, there appears to be competing interests between municipalities and local traditional leaders. It boils down to perceptions of control and power. In some areas elected municipal officials are not able to do their jobs because the local traditional leaders are in control. As a result, service delivery falters and South Africans are left without basic services such as water, sanitation or decent roads.

The Canadian experience indicates that a traditional leader needs not be in competition with local government leaders but can be used as a resource person to improve service deliver in the areas in which these traditional leaders are in control. For instance, "in many deep-rural areas the local traditional leader is the only contact with the outside world," Heinz explains. "It makes administrative and practical sense to hand over control of certain services and functions to them. In many rural local municipalities, for instance, there are no fire-fighting services in heavily forested areas. The monitoring of this service is something that traditional leaders could easily take control of, and they could also be responsible for recording births, deaths and help monitor communicable diseases."

But, it is not just the treatment of traditional leaders in Canada that impressed Heinz and his colleagues. There were other innovations that caught the South Africans' attention. British Columbia has one independent property assessment company, for instance, that is responsible for all municipal evaluations. This minimises any discrepancies in valuations and is very efficient.

"They also have a very interesting funding model that hinges on what is essentially a municipal bank," continues Heinz. "All municipalities contribute to it and it is listed on the stock exchange. It has a triple-A credit rating and municipalities can borrow from it at a reduced lending rate, making it much more affordable than banks which charge a far higher interest rate. This means that municipalities can fund public works or whatever else that needs to be done in their area easily."

But, it was the protection of agricultural land that really caught Heinz's attention as KwaZulu-Natal also has prime agricultural land and managing it effectively is a top priority.

"In British Columbia, agricultural land is regarded as a very important resource and it is classified as having a high, medium or low value. There is a big focus on food security and agriculture. And, despite ever-expanding cities, the agricultural land reserve has actually increased by over 60 000 hectares, since protection of the land was put in place some 35 years ago. In South Africa, prime agricultural land is often used for housing and golf estates and we clearly need to scrutinise this, especially as food security becomes more critical."

"There are so many lessons to be learnt," says Heinz. "Changes need to be implemented and it is very exciting seeing what can be achieved by a committed local and provincial government. The assistance of CIDA has been invaluable in opening our eyes to what can be done, and we are extremely grateful for this opportunity. I have since been back again to visit the Provincial Governments in Toronto and Victoria, and I have had extremely fruitful discussions with them.

Since returning from his Canadian visits, Heinz has had his hands full. Recommendations have been made and legislation has been drafted and submitted to the provincial legislature. If all goes well, it could be signed into law by the end of 2010. With regard to the Agricultural Land Commission, I am proposing a similar model in KwaZulu-Natal, and hope to visit the Commission as part of a group of officials from the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development in the near future."

Refugee Status Determination System

Knowledge interchange between the Refugee Appeal Board at the Department of Home Affairs, South Africa and the Immigration Department, Canada on the Refugee Status Determination System

Until just over a decade ago, South Africa was regarded as a refugee producing country. During the apartheid years, thousands of South Africans sought refuge in neighbouring countries or abroad. Today the political landscape has changed and South Africa is now a destination sought after by refugees. It's estimated that at least 1,000 people seeking asylum cross into South Africa each day, predominantly from Zimbabwe and other African states.

There are currently several thousand applications for asylum waiting to be processed by the Department of Home Affairs. It is an overwhelming task and the number of pending cases is mind numbing. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa during 2008 and again in 2009 serve to highlight the pressure South African communities are subjected to due to urgent and competing domestic priorities.

In 1998, Ahmed Arbee was tasked with setting up and chairing the first Refugee Appeal Board (RAB), an independent body established in terms of section 12(1) of the Refugees Act 1998.

The purpose of the Board is to consider all the appeals lodged against the decisions of Refugee Status Determination Officers. This is no small feat given that there are currently only four members of the Appeal Board and the number of appeals continues to increase. The Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs (SCRA) reviews the decisions of the Refugee Status Determination Officers with specific reference to unfounded, abusive and fraudulent claims.

"South Africa is a signatory to the Geneva Convention which emphasises a humane approach to the victims of persecution," explains Ahmed. "As such, we undertake to treat asylum seekers fairly and with compassion. Since 9/11 the United States and Europe have tightened their immigration control enormously, as has Australia. Though people leave their countries for fear of persecution and, while they have the right to ask for asylum in another country, South Africa is facing the brunt of reactionary policies. The crisis in Zimbabwe has resulted in a huge influx of people and there's very little international burden sharing both within Africa and internationally."

"One of our aims is to promote an understanding of refugee law and to harmonize practices and status determination standards both in South Africa and Africa. To further these goals, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funded a visit of representatives of the Africa Chapter of the International Association of Refugee Law, Judges, the High Court, the Refugee Appeal Board and the Department of Home Affairs to Canada. The purpose of our visit to Canada was to gather more information about their status determination standards and to learn how to implement effective administrative procedures. The Canadian system is very impressive, well resourced and with an exceptional country-of-origin database.

"Fortunately for us," Ahmed continues, "we have established a partnership that will enable us to tap into their country-of-origin information. We also had the opportunity to witness oral hearings, including ways of determining the credibility of asylum seekers. This is a particularly difficult task, especially when dealing with women and unaccompanied minors.

"In order to determine whether somebody's claim is genuine or not you need to extract as much information as possible. But, in terms of the spirit of the Geneva Convention, the process is designed to be inquisitorial rather than adversarial and this takes time – something which we do not have given the number of cases we need to handle every day.

Dr. Florencia Belvedere, Johannesburg Refugee Reception Centre Manager, was part of the delegation that visited Canada. She came back energised and with better ideas on how to improve the local system.

"Administrative justice is very important," asserts Dr. Belvedere, "and, while our circumstances are different, it was eye-opening to see the excellent work done by the Canadians. The time taken for each hearing was impressive and due process is followed every step of the way. For instance, where we might try to fit five cases into three hours; we sat through a relatively straightforward hearing which took a minimum of two hours. What's more, the information gathered about the person's country of origin is very in-depth and this cuts to the heart of the matter and allows adjudicators to determine whether or not the claim is legitimate.

"There are some very practical measures we can learn from the Canadian example." For instance, anybody who wants to apply for asylum is freely given the application forms to take away, fill them in and then submit them within 60 days. However, in South Africa, we give clients the forms to fill in onsite, and this takes an enormous amount of time and clogs the system. It also does not allow clients to submit additional information. Adopting a new approach to the filling in of applications forms can help streamline the system and get things moving."

What stood out, though, for both Ahmed and Florencia, was the level of customer service. This is something both are striving for.

"We need to aim for qualitative decision making in the Department of Home Affairs to reduce pressure on the Appeal Board," Ahmed explains. "Case law needs to be applied more uniformly and we need to promote professional development on an ongoing basis."

To this end, our Canadian counterparts are coming to South Africa in March 2010, where we will run in-house training for officials of the Department of Home Affairs. It will also be helpful to the Canadians to see what our circumstances are and together we can tailor make an effective system for South Africa in which we streamline our processes."

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