by Jesse Griesel – Cape Town artist
Many people see my school, the German International School Cape Town, as a microcosm of the world. With a school containing a diverse mix of all South African races and cultures as well as German culture, only 24 years after democracy, tensions run high every day.
As in many places all over the world the easiest thing management can do is ignore passive-aggressive racial segregation and pretend nothing is wrong.
Coming back from my first international initiative with Breaking Walls in Warsaw 2017, I decided to begin a ‘Diversity Club’ at my school – to bring/begin dialogue surrounding diversity and to fix systematic issues within our little microcosm of a school. For the past year, we have been trying to grow our little group as well as trying to get school management on our side.
This year was a breakthrough as myself and other previous Breaking Walls Cape Town 2017 participant, Tracy Dusabimana, were invited to the school’s annual strategy meeting where we joined in a dialogue with some of the real shift-shapers in the “Building Bridges” portfolio. Our immediate next steps will be to look at courses for teachers regarding mental health. We have put some long-term goals into our school plan such as reforming our music centre to include inspiring, diverse musicians instead of the classical musicians (Mozart and Beethoven).
I love bringing the many valuable Breaking Walls lessons we learn into our school where we strive to create a safe space where people feel free to open up about issues.