Poetry in the times of Covid-19

For 20 years, FXB has focused on education and the development of psycho-social and interpersonal skills of particularly vulnerable children in South Africa.

In recent days, guerrilla scenes have been taking place in several poor neighborhoods in South Africa. Since the country’s confinement on 26 March in an attempt to stem the coronavirus epidemic, the inhabitants of some slums and townships have been crying out for food. In addition to the loss of jobs and income, there is also a shortage of food.

Before the schools closed, our children received food supplements and, for families consisting only of children, larger food parcels. All of them also received bars of soap so that they could continue to practice the barrier gesture of hand-washing that they had learned in our programs.

However, we remain in daily contact with the children via Skype or WhatsApp. The FXB team organizes food distributions and creates distance recreational activities to limit the stress and boredom of children who find themselves confined to their makeshift homes in the slums.

Axolile, one of our young beneficiaries and an orphan living with two sisters, both unemployed, wrote a poem during a distance writing workshop about the fears and anxieties sparked by the current crisis:

An unforgettable year

The way it came without any alarm
How it could bring so much harm
We never thought of such a thing
It spread dramatically… everything…
is bad.
This thing isn’t just some kind of joke
That you can laugh off.
This thing is taking so many lives
It’s a worldwide killer.
It is so disturbing for us,
We are really suffering from this disease.
There is even lockdown….
We can’t go to shops, school or even church,
This is a nightmare!
We are forced to be indoors,
We wait for a miracle to come and kill it
So that our hearts will feel warm again.
We put our faith to our God.