Constitution Hill: Built from the Bricks of the Old Fort Prison Complex
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Today students in CIEE's Leadership and Service through Mandela's Example program visited the Old Fort Prison Complex and Constitution Hill. The students toured the complex and saw the cell where Mandela was held. They also saw the inequalities present even in the prisons where white prisoners were given better living spaces and more food than non-white prisoners. The many cultural excursions students will attend this week will serve as an understanding for the setting of their service projects. Students have been busy taking notes and reflecting on these experiences.
Students also went inside of Constitution hill which was built from the demolished blocks of a section of the Old Fort Prison. This instilled hope for change and recognition of past injustices among students which encouraged their enthusiasm for their service projects.
In a reflection session we held about our visit to Constitution Hill and the Old Fort Prison students noted that it was amazing how open South Africa has been about its past policies and inequalities. And, they have noted how there are still inequalities in South African Society today and these struggles are not only struggles in the past tense. Students also reflected on some of the similarities and differences between inequalities currently in South Africa and inequalities in America where they compared the inequal treatment of prisoners at this time in South Africa with the inequal representation among ethnic groups in prison in the Unted States due to police targeting minority groups.
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