The Value of Being Needed in a High-Risk School Community in Southern Africa

• In Event: Southern African Perspectives on Indigenous Pathways to Care and Support in High-Risk School Communities

Abstract

With the first paper in this symposium we theorise that IKS constitute not only social
connectedness, but also relatedness as a continuity of connectedness – thus integrating
life and after-life relatedness. In addition, we posit need as a positive driver to attain meaning in life, and as a driver that links relationships within such a continuity of connectedness. We argue that policy and intervention infused with IKS can result in resourceful responses that use communal capitals to direct mutual well-being and livelihoods, rather than frame assistance as individually targeted aid for victims who are disabled and isolated by vulnerability.

Both need and being in need, add value to life and are scripted as positive and an inevitable part of life. Being ‘in need’ is not at all to be pitied. Therefore a driver of existence (whether biological or transcendental) is to be needed: i.e. because you are needed (by the living), you live, because you are needed (by the ancestors), you pass away. Your existential value lies in being indispensable and useful to others. It therefore follows that a status of being in need (being vulnerable) is not evaluated as negative. Rather, being in need is viewed as normative, and also as a potential opportunity for others to live out a life purpose and respond to need by being useful (providing care and support). In an existential sense, IKS hold that those in need actually create an opportunity for others to respond to a calling to supply support. The vulnerability of some (their being in need) and the ability of others to provide care and support, are flip-sides of the same coin- both groups are living their life purpose, the same coin – both groups are living their life purpose.

Author

• Liesel Ebersohn, University of Pretoria