Happy Happiness Day! - 20/21.03.2013

20th of March is International Day of Happiness. It was just established by UN in July 2012, so actually this year it is celebrated for the first time. Other important date this week was 21.03.2013 which is The Human Rights Day in South Africa. In celebration of The Happiness Day, UN Women decided to visit one of the local orphanages in Soweto. The visit actually took place on the 21.03 as this is a national holiday in South Africa and most offices do not work. As part of the UN Team we were also invited and could bring other IBMer's with. I have to say - spoiler alert - one of those point of view changing moments, but keep on reading to find out more.

I was not really sure what to expect - my thoughts about Soweto (Jo'burg subbed, where the orphanage is located and home to 11 million people) were mostly shaped by images of poverty and hunger that you see in media and guidebooks. The reality was quite different. When we arrived at the place around 9:15 on Thursday we were greeted by 64 smiling faces. The whole place looked modest but nice and clean - 4 buildings with sleeping rooms, common dinning/play area, outside playground and a football field. We first unpacked all of the gifts and gave away the T-shirts with Happiness Day logo to all of the children. After a short official part - few words from UN and the head of the orphanage + short introduction of UN Women and IBM teams, we had a chance to spend some time with the kids. There was an artistic program prepared by both UN, performing One Women song (YouTube), and by children - step dancing and singing. From there we split into smaller groups, each one having some other plans on how to spend the day - some were teaching kids staff, some were cooking or taking care of the toddlers, while others played with them, or sat in a circle talking or singing. I have learned some things that day myself - like Japanese art of Origami by Keiko from our IBM/UN Women team. I also got a chance to play soccer with the kids together with Tony and Tiffany, but because it was like 5000 degrees C outside we managed to stay alive for only 20 minutes. I crawled back inside and sat on a chair and in few seconds I was having kids sitting on my laps and playing with everything that came into their hands - hat, glasses, camera etc.I know what you're thinking - with my attitude to children something bad probably happened next, but no. I was even enjoying that. You know all of the children around you, whatever if your own, your sister's, your friends's - they are laud, spoiled and can not take care of themselves for 2 minutes. This was very different - they saw a toy in everything (like the mentioned sunglasses), were smiling all the time (I actually did not see or hear even one of them crying for the whole day) and were playing together in a not too loud way - to remind you there was 64 of them on a small space. How did that work out at your last family party with just 4 kids running around?

After few moments of seating together, we served the food that was prepared by UN Team and unfortunately that was just about the time to head back to Pretoria.