Volunteer blog: We welcome Caroline Winberg to our Project Playground family!

We welcome Caroline Winberg to our Project Playground family!

In South Africa, where the colour of your skin affects whether you are worthy clean water and education or not, the segregation between humans is extreme. Apartheid era is over since 20 years back but its symptoms and consequences are still today very present and nurtures prejudices and assumptions of all kinds – one of them being that people with white skin colour lacks problems in their lives.

Having Caroline at Project Playground is huge for our children and youth - she is a successful model who seems to have no issues regarding self-esteem. However, Caroline has valuable experiences to share. As a role model, she is at Project Playground for a reason. In the townships, sexual violence is more usual than unusual and according to statistics a woman gets raped every 17th second in South Africa. We want our young girls to empower themselves, have respect for their own body, and stop seeking attention from boys through sexual behaviour. In this aim, Caroline will get to know the environment of our kids and together with Project Playground's physiotherapist Aimee form a program focusing on empowerment and the importance of inner strength and beauty - based on her own experiences. We hope that Caroline's presence will affect and inspire all of our kids, and most importantly, change the mindset of our young girls. 

"Hi my name is Caroline Winberg. I have worked as a model for over 14 years and I’m also hosting the tv shows The Face in the UK and Topmodel in Sweden. It was through Topmodel that I made my first visit to Project Playground in February.

I can’t even describe how I felt the first time I was there. I was crying and smiling thoughout my whole day. Its was so amazing to see all these children who come from nothing to be so happy to just get a hug and attention. I decided that day that I had to come back asap and now I’m here.

Day 1.

I started my day in the Play on Wheels group. The group that have children with physical and mental disabilities. We started with sitting in a circle playing the drums and singing. Its amazing to see how these kids that can’t even walk or talk are so good at playing the drums and following the rhythm. It started to smell like food and the kids all got very excited and wanted to go to the kitchen table. The oldest boy in the group, Unathi who’s 32 years old and has down’s syndrome was helping putting out plates and glasses for everyone. Most of the kids can’t eat by themselves so we fed them while the wonderful and very patient teachers told me the kids stories. Some were born disabled due to fetal alcohol syndrome, one of the girls became brain damaged when her house caught on fire and the roof fell down on her head. She was now paralyzed on her right side.

After the food Unathi helped to clean and swiped the floor. Then it was story time. I have to admit I hardly listened to the story since I had little AsaQama in my in my lap. She can’t walk yet some she crawls around and is just the sweetest most loving little girl I’ve ever met. She would’t leave my lap all day and just wanted hugs and love

Before the driver takes the kids back home we changed their diapers and made sure they were fed and clean. The driver took us around the townships where we drop the kids off and some of their parents were kind enough to let us in to see their houses. It was one of the most eye opening and sad thing I have ever seen. Some live 8 children and grownups in one little room without furniture. One of the boys, Colins mother invited us in, proud to show us her house. She was a hoarder like no tomorrow. The house was 2 tiny rooms and full of things, it stank like garbage and i still can’t make that smell go away. Clothes all the way up to the ceiling and only a tiny little space in the middle of the room where you could actually see the floor. Apparenty his mother locks him in the house when she has to do errands cause she’s embarrassed that he’s disabled. I don’t even know where they slept cause there was nothing you could even sit on in there

After dropping the kids in PoW off at home the other kids come to Project Playground cause they are done with school. I started in the b8 group (kids below 8 years old). The kids told us about their weekend sitting in a circle. Some in english and some in Xhosa. There’s 37 children in the group so you can only imagine how hard it is for them to be quiet and listen to each other with patient. After that we sang some songs and went outside to play soccer and drink since the little ones was tired of sitting still. All the kids are extremely cuddly and they just wanna be held and get picked up to get a smile on their face

My last class of the day was arts class with the little older children. They showed me how to make collages by ripping out pictures. I was amazed to see how good they were at it and how beautiful their collages came out, way better then the one I did. They called me Lungo and laughed (it means white person)and we all sang the swedish national song together while making art. The kids are very interested and asks questions about where I was from and what I was doing there. Last bit of class we stood in a circle and everyone has to say their name, where they were from, what they like to do and what their dream job is. Most kids loves to play soccer and netball and a lot of them are dreaming about becoming lawyers and teacher, one of the little boys wanted to grow up to be a security gard.

It was a amazing first day and I can’t wait till tomorrow."