How poor is South Africa?

First, apologies for the absence - caused largely by work - I was in Pretoria for a few days - and also by the arrival of my "heavy baggage" (the stuff that came by sea - it took three months) which meant that my flat was practically inaccessible until I unpacked the boxes; this job isn't finished yet - the spare bedroom is still a warehouse of cardboard - but at least I can move around again. And I got my guitar back - the only thing I own, I find, that I actually missed.

I was in Pretoria to start work on a new project with UNICEF as a partner. This was a very interesting experience, partly because UNICEF have very different working processes and culture, and partly because they are, of course, entirely focused on development issues. Talking to my new colleagues resolved the issue for me about where South Africa falls on the first-to-third-world spectrum; a senior UNICEF person was very clear: "South Africa is a third-world country with small pockets of wealth". The statistics are stark: 12.3 million children - 68% of the total - are classed as impoverished; they live in families (if they have families - AIDS has taken a massive toll) with an income of less than 1,200 rand per month - that's about 80 pounds sterling. 13 million people in South Africa are recipients of welfare benefits; the amounts are very low - the allocation for each child who qualifies is seven rand a day - fifty pence. Access to education is of course an issue, and access to quality education is part of the problem - most of the schools that used to be for white children now charge fees which are beyond the reach of poor families - so the best schools continue to be excellent (there was an newspaper article the other day which noted that rich British families are now sending their kids to boarding schools in SA because it's cheaper than in the UK) but the poor schools continue to be very badly resourced (as an example, there's a charity drive here to collect money for every school in the country to have A FOOTBALL - many of them can't afford any sports equipment at all, while millions are being spent on stadiums, preparing for the World Cup).

UNICEF is working with the 585 most problematic schools in the country - the project I'm helping with will select thirty of them to be hubs for models of activity around the theme of sport (training, games, competitions, physical exercise, sports festivals etc. being a recognised way to distract children from what a UNICEF leader called "unproductive activities" - i.e. gang violence, drugs, teenage pregnancies, absenteeism, dropping out, etc.) - and this will be part, believe it or not, in an admittedly indirect way, of Britain's 2012 Olympic legacy. Let's hope we can do something to help.

(And I do notice the disconnect between my own lifestyle and the facts listed above - how much did it cost to ship my boxes of semi-superfluous stuff half way around the world? The first world /third world gap is a very real one, but here you inevitably live it more personally.)