Hilton Trollip

Hilton Trollip

Hilton is responsible for the media, image and expression programme (MI&E), tutors maths and science and, like most of our core team members, does a lot of other things besides (he is a signatory and his significant experience in institutional development makes him an important asset for our organisational growth). The MI&E programme involves encouraging Ikamvanites to express themselves through speech, art and drama and assisting Ikamvanites to use access and use new media. Typical activities include facilitating Ikamvanites interviewing each other on camera, photographic, sound and video recording of personal, educational and dramatic performances and community rituals and events and editing and disseminating the material. The programme provides ikamvanites with opportunities to express themselves, their hopes, dreams and worries, and is building capacity for IkamvaYouth to begin using this as a basis for replicating and promoting its work.

At the beginning of 2006, Hilton had some spare time and had heard about IkamvaYouth. He began tutoring Maths and Science and is now very involved at a number of levels. As he became more involved, he realised the huge need for IkamvaYouth and the ways in which the organisation is meeting these needs in a very special way: “IkamvaYouth is very replicable and is possibly the only solution I’ve seen so far that can deal with the sorry state of the education system.” He says, “I believe all volunteers should remain actively involved in because it gets and keeps one in touch. It has made me re-assess what is really going on in the “new” South Africa. I’ve become involved almost full time and seeing daily what goes on in the lives of poor people and the lack of services and resources at their disposal has been strengthening my interest and resolve to increase my involvement in IkamvaYouth which is one of the few organisations that I have seen actually making a difference on the ground in Khayelitsha.

Hilton has an Msc in Engineering from Wits University, and has worked for more than twenty years as an engineer, manager and academic. Explaining why he is involved in IkamvaYouth, Hilton says, ”I was deeply involved with the political transition in the nineties but around the “ten years of democracy celebrations” era became somewhat disillusioned as to the likelihood of the state being able to address the problems of poverty. As I was not able to join the “etablishment” in the 1980’s, in the apartheid era, I can’t join it now, as I believe that possibly we face even worse problems and that the state is in denial about these and that they could end up destroying whatever advances were made in the 1990s. Just like you can find nobody now who ever supported apartheid I think there are going to be people in ten years time saying that they didn’t know about the poverty and the decline of the health, education and infrastructure systems that is a reality today for anyone who opens their eyes. It’s not special, but I think the characteristic that has brought me to Ikamva is that I can’t close my eyes on this.When some of the horrors we see daily in poverty stricken areas aren’t freaking me out enough to want to leave for New Zealand I think that maybe through working with groups such as IkamvaYouth I might be able to at least make a positive difference in lots of people’s lives, especially my own.”