“Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright” Benjamin Franklin

So most of you know out there that I’m playing in the Ngikwazi space for a bit. While having the priviledge of being closeted by the Avo space. Now if you know the two companies at all you know that Avo is a gentle, nurturing, supportive space that seeks to give it’s team and clients the very best of what it has to offer. Ngikwazi is similar in that the client: Gidani and the South African public we serve, deserve the very best and Ngikwazi is committed to delivering to SA and Gidani the BESTESSSST Lottery ever!!!

The biggest difference bewteen Avo and Ngikwazi of course is the nature and pace at which the two companies operate.

Avo, though pressurised, has a warmer more feminine type of pressure, where Ngikwazi is hard and driven.

Though I am operating in the Kwazi space at the moment I still continue to straddle both spaces and hold both teams very close. At the start of this journey I said to Jules, “I do not know why I need to experience this space but I know I do, instinctively”.

So you saw my quote at the start of this blog… yep that’s why I need to be in the Ngikwazi space. The journey of training retailers has taken me from the affluent to the poorest of the poor. It has taken me into areas where desolation exists not in the poverty of the surroundings, but exists in the hearts, eyes and far more powerfully in the minds of people.

You all know I come from and operate from a space of comfort and a life, though challenged, but one of ease. Yes, it might be argued that I have worked hard to achieve this and maintain it and you would not be wrong. The thing that hit me square between the eyes …well there were two things, was simply this:

1. I have a choice and I have a voice… I am powerful (not meant arrogantly at all). What this means is that even with the challenges we faced at Avo,( and you who were close to us know exactly how real they were), had Jules and I lost everything we would have been okay. Not because we are clever or had a private stash somewhere but because we understood we had a choice, and a voice and it is this that makes us powerful. And even if materialistically we had nothing and had lost everything we would still be okay… we would land on our feet because we understand the power of choice.

But in this country the vast majority of people do not have a choice, there a few who can tap into that thing that exists within us that makes us powerful. But 90% of our country are too shrouded in poverty and fear and a sense of helpless to understand the concept of choice. How do you stand up when around every corner you are beaten down? When you have no sense of self…because it has been starved from you?

The second thing that struck me was this:

2. I was training a retailer in store and a gentleman came in and it was pre-rugby and he was jolly and all was good. He bought his Lottery ticket from me and off he went. Tata Ma Chancing interlaced with AmaBokke and Rooi Rok poppie type-medley of sorts, type thing. I remember him saying to me tonight’s lottery draw would be the one.

Anyway, he left the store and I went on with the training, and the very next minute the store owner came out shouting “What’s going on there?”. The very man I had served a minute before, who I had laughed with, chatted to, was being beaten to a pulp. I am talking about being kicked in the face, one guy was jumping on his head. I am talking full on assualt with the intent of doing serious bodily harm. I come from Cape Town, I live in Joburg, while I have not ever personally experienced violence of this kind I am not naive to it.

The senselessness of this assualt and the brutality of the assualt that happened right in front of me can only have come from desperation or people who are inherently evil. It’s one of the two, I cannot believe the latter, so in my head it must be the former.

This oke had NOTHING, he was dirt poor and he had had a drink and was supprting the bokke, he had nothing. So for him to be assualted and robbed etc was beyond me totally. The brutality of the assualt left me reeling. It was like I witnessed the transition from person to animal.

This blog is not about how depraved this country is or how I am looking for a better life for my children or how unsalvagable South African society is. On the contrary it is the opposite.

It is about understanding that my personal road that I am travelling now with Ngikwazi has defined for me so very clearly the purpose of FOOTPRINT.

You see, as the quote says, you cannot expect a man who has nothing, absolutely nothing….to live with dignity and respect…it is just not possible, when your belly aches day after day, when all you understand is desolation and helplessness, when the only language you have is one of desperation how can you live virtuously? How do you give a damn about your’ fellow man?

Please, I am not trying to excuse violence either or even justify it. All I am saying is that poverty and lack of education robs people of the right and choice to live with dignity. Extreme poverty robs people of their humanity.

Maybe I am simplistic in my understanding but surely the restoration of dignity will come from people living as people, not as animals scrounging to make meaning of their existence by lashing out as cruelly and as inhumanely as possible.

So my point is this, somehow through this Lottery project I am drawing closer to the reality of the South African experience, through this project and in the Ngikwazi space I am growing for a purpose… . I have an inkling, I have an understanding of that purpose and for the moment all I am saying is with power comes responsibility and our responsibility is to this country.

And to those who have no power….