Angel Mehta's Enlightenment Project has to date sponsored three essay competitions:
April 2005
Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa
By: Nadine Blum
A. Project Background
During a research/internship placement at the Women's Legal Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, I became involved in a tutoring program with an organization called Ikamva Lisezandleni Zethu (Ikamva for short), which provides education, e-literacy training and career guidance to grade 11 and 12 children attending schools in the Khayelitsha area, one of Cape Town's poorest and most dangerous areas. Ikamva's activities centre around the Nazeema Isaacs Public Library in the township where the students meet with volunteer tutors three times a week. I began tutoring biology on Saturday mornings.
I decided to partner with Ikamva to run an "Enlightenment Project" essay event because it provided an effective means to tap into multiple schools in the Khayelitsha area.
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B. The Essay Competition Topics
We designed essay topics to encourage critical and creative thought on important issues facing residents of Khayelitsha:
Topic 1: Your Life Lessons at 50:
Imagine that it is your fiftieth birthday. A close friend is giving a speech about your life. He/she tells the people at the party about your achievements and how you overcame obstacles to get to where you are today.
Now write the speech, reflecting on the past 50 years of your life. What lessons would you say you learned that were the most valuable from that time. What have you accomplished? What were the barriers to you achieving your goals? What barriers were you able to overcome by yourself? How? Which barriers required help from, or changes to be made by, family, friends, your community or larger society, in order for you to overcome them?
Topic 2: Your Action Plan for Rape Prevention:
40% of reported rapes in the Western Cape occur in Khayelitsha and the vast majority (well over 90%) of these rapes are committed by men against women. Why is rape so prevalent in our community? What are the factors that turn people into rapists? How are rape survivors emotionally and/or psychologically affected by the experience? Do they get the support they need from the people around them, and society generally?
Imagine you have been asked by a leader in your community to design an action plan to reduce the incidence of rape in the community. Reflecting on the observations you have made about attitudes of men and women towards rape, discuss your plan and what will be required for it to work.
Students in Khayelitsha face daunting barriers to achieving their goals. According to those working with students in Khayelitsha, at times there is a sense that these barriers are insurmountable. We deliberately kept this first question broad with the hope that students would engage in critical and creative thought to ask themselves difficult questions about the nature of the barriers they face (social, cultural, economic etc.).
This second question asked students to reflect on their own observations of community attitudes towards rape, question these attitudes, and then create strategies that could help to reduce the incidents of rape. While narrower in focus than the first topic, this question was similarly asking students to reflect on prevalent social attitudes and behaviours and asking, more specifically, how these attitudes can be changed.
C. Introduction of Competition and Workshop
The essay competition was open to all students in grades 11 and 12 in the Khayelitsha area, not just those participating in Ikamva. We made an announcement about the competition in early March and handed out flyers for students to distribute in their schools. A few weeks later we held an information session where we attempted to explain the process and the philosophy behind the competition. Two weeks before the essays were due we held a workshop where students could ask questions and have a tutor look over the essay for structural and grammatical help, though we emphasized that the essays were being marked on the quality of ideas, not grammar. English is a second or even third language for most students in Khayelitsha and sciences and math often take precedence over language skills. Therefore, Ikamva saw this as a good opportunity to motivate students to improve their English.
We received just under 30 essays. While we were satisfied with this level of participation, we thought that given the level of expressed interest among students and the wide distribution of flyers and posters, there would have been more submissions. It is possible that this was party attributable to the fact that there had been a holiday in between the workshop and the due date and that students, therefore, forgot about the competition. Also, similar to the experience in Ghana, some students expressed that they did not have a good chance of winning.
D. Judging of Competition
Myself and Rupa Chilukuri, who was my co-worker at the Women's Legal Centre, judged the entries. We developed a marking scheme based on the philosophy of the competition and we decided on the winners by consensus.
Almost all the students chose to write on the second topic of rape. When we read the entries we realized that despite our efforts to explain the goals of the competition and to construct questions that required personal reflection, a number of the entries contained what seemed to be 'textbook' material and little reflection. To some, the rape topic seemed to be the 'easier' topic because information on rape could be readily found in library textbooks. Another disturbing trend that must be mentioned was the prevalence of certain rape myths in some of the essays. Some essays seemed to suggest that women who wore miniskirts were somewhat at fault when they became the targets of rape.
Despite our initial disappointment with some of the entries, there were a few that contained original and innovative ideas and were truly reflective. We chose the top 6 essays to win cash prizes and all participants were given certificates.
E. Awards Ceremony
We held the awards ceremony at the Library and all participants in the competition and in Ikamva were invited. First, all participants were called up by name to receive their certificate and then the top six were announced to receive awards. There was tremendous excitement in the room and there was a very supportive and positive vibe throughout. We concluded by thanking the students and the volunteers and refreshments were served.
F. Winners
The winners were as follows:
| First Place | Zukile Keswa |
| Second Place | Bongifefe Mphakama |
| Third Place | Nwabisa Luzipho |
| Fourth Place | Siyanda Chiliza |
| Fifth Place | Thobela Bixa |
| Sixth Place | Vuyokazi Gama |
G. Reflections and Suggestions for Future
I think that the Enlightenment Project has an important and ambitious mandate and it provides a very valuable opportunity for participants. However, after having organized the competition, I wonder whether it wouldn't be more effective to shift the focus from targeting many entrants to rather focusing on smaller groups of committed individuals. For students educated in systems that do not encourage critical thinking, getting these students to probe and dig deep for the big 'why' answers requires near paradigmatic changes in thinking.
In the case of the Ikamva Enlightenment Project, I think it would have been more effective to limit the number of entrants to about 10-12. These students would commit to coming to a weekly workshop where they would engage in discussions and mini-projects that would encourage them to question and think creatively. By successfully participating in the workshops, students would 'win' the chance to compete in the ultimate essay competition. Awards could be structured so that there is at least some financial incentive for all participants.
Summary:
The Enlightenment Project in Ghana - a Letter from Christopher Cox
Christopher Cox of the US Peace Corp. was responsible for bringing the Enlightenment Project to Ghana, Africa. (Special thanks to my friend Allen Tackett for the introduction to Chris.) I've asked Chris to write his thoughts about the event in Ghana, and be particularly blunt about the problems he encountered in the process. Hopefully this letter will contain lessons for those of you who are helping me organize the Enlightenment Project in other areas of the world.
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Summary:
Our first every essay competition was held at a school in a tiny village called Dungar, located in Gujurat State, India. Over 50 students (aged 12 - 18) participated, writing essays on topics including gender equality, india's caste system, and community development. I visited the town in December 2002 to evaluate the essays and present the awards. The winner wrote an 18 page essay on the topic of gender equality in society. posted soon.)