My Davidson | A Student Blog Learning to Listen: A Bonner Scholar's Summer of Service in Cape Town

This summer for my Bonner Summer of Service I was in Cape Town, South Africa, volunteering at Life Brand Communications, a marketing agency with a strong emphasis on social enterprise. Working on their video production team I collaborated with several non-profits: going on site visits to determine media needs, conducting video shoots, and working on several stages of the production process. 

What I enjoyed most was conducting site visits. I specifically remember working with the Cape Town Society for the Blind, where we met so many incredible people. Speaking, laughing, and reflecting directly with Cape Townians were the moments where I got to learn the most about South Africa, and how its people navigate the issues that affect their lives.

I chose South Africa because it provided an opportunity to learn through service while being immersed in a culture distinct from my own. More than just traveling to a new place, I hoped that living and engaging in a service-oriented professional setting abroad would encourage self-development as I define my personal trajectory. I learned how the human experience transcends borders through the storytelling lens. 

Originally, coming to South Africa to be engaged with social issues made me feel uneasy. I’ve seen stories of harmful and ignorant volunteer tourism and savourism. Coming to the African continent to build schools, teach English, and serve at exploitative orphanages “to be the change” has been a growing economy where students are eager to support the communities they pity and know so little about. 

I didn’t want to be another well-to-do foreigner replicating that pattern. The idea that I could “help” in a place I had never been, with its own history, complex systems, and ongoing struggles in the post-apartheid landscape, felt arrogant. What could I possibly offer? What did I actually know about life in Cape Town?

Just a few months earlier, I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, for the Bonner scholar freshman year service retreat. While Charleston shared more similarities with my hometown, Baltimore, I had trouble orienting myself.

We volunteered at NGO’s and non-profits primarily through direct service; picking crops, packing boxes, and helping with revitalization projects. I realized how little I understood about how these organizations fit within the broader context of the city. I didn’t know who held power, how different systems interacted, or how to reasonably participate in a struggle that wasn’t my own. The retreat brought up necessary reflections of my positionality, and how to listen rather than impose.

Those reflections guided my experience of Cape Town. I understood that I wasn’t there to bring systematic change, or to save anyone. By volunteering at an organization deeply involved in the non-profit sector, I was able to see the intersections between government, education, multi-national investment, public health, and more, as well as the issues those intersecting systems create, and how local organizations have engaged with their communities in support. 

Coming home, I carried these observations with me. I’ve learned that meaningful service starts with listening, asking questions, and understanding systems before acting. The point was never to fix, but to witness, to learn and to reflect. What I took back is a deeper awareness of how I move through the world and how I can engage with communities, my own included, with more care, curiosity, and intention.