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Topsy Foundation

Grootvlei Travel Blog › entry 3 of 5 › view all entries

A mini study abroad all over South Africa with 12 students and two professors researching HIV/AIDS. A further note: my camera broke on the second day so all these pictures are taken by other students on the trip. Enkosi, South Africa!

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Topsy Foundation

January 10, 2008

the Peace Tiles we gave Topsy

Off we went to the Topsy Foundation in Mpumalanga! The Topsy Foundation offers home-based care, ARVs, VCT, gardening starters and help and a beadwork project for empowerment. We talked to the single doctor and some workers for awhile and gave them some Peace Tiles Goucher College (the school we attend) made on World AIDS Day (http://www.mixedmedia.us/peacetiles/). Then we saw some beadworkers and went into one of the communities Topsy serves. Visiting the township felt very intrusive and exploitative. We literally walked into a home (all 15 of us plus a few extra), looked around, and left. We didn't get a chance to interact with people, and the 15-on-1 dynamic was too much as it is. Luckily we got to spend more time talking to people later in the trip, but this "township tour" made us all uncomfortable. Though Topsy is undoubtedly doing great things, it was not one of my favorite NGOs that we visited (we met with a LOT of people in the three weeks).