The Immersion SA experience will open you up to interacting with the already established communities of Xhosa people. You will be exposed to more community-oriented ways of thinking and your ‘western’ ideas will be challenged as you witness and live through daily incidents that will confront your previous modes of thought.

You might be frustrated with the attitudes of other people, if they are not akin to your own. You might appreciate how community allows all people to be valued equally. You might realise there is no right or wrong; only ways in which people have been influenced, over time, to live. Immerse yourself in it. Come with an open mind and appreciate that you while you probably come from a more individualistic background, your genuine experience of community as it unfolds from day to day will teach you something more about yourself and the world.

Spending time living with a rural Xhosa family in a mud hut for a few days, and interacting with people though community work, will expose you to the richness and intricate connections of the local community.

Yet that is not the only community of people you will encounter. You will form part of an equally important community of people; a community of people ready to do something to change the world for the better. You are part of a global community, comprising of untold members, whose commitment and good work has already had an immeasurable positive impact on the world. This is a global movement of global citizens, non-government organizations, revolutionaries, housewives, children, religious groups, atheists, liberals, conservationists, teachers and students. The numbers are growing rapidly as the wave attracts those inextricably linked with its ideologies and visions. It is a community of people that seeks not to harm, but to help. It seeks not to negate, but to nurture and seeks not to control, but to connect. As a reader alone, you are likely to be part of a rapidly growing community of people who realise that something is wrong with the world. If you are ready to be part of that change then the time is now.

“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Throughout your time with Immersion SA, while interacting with people, culture and community, you will have many chances to form your own communities with people of similar hopes, dreams and mindsets, whilst also learning from and adapting to the actions and attitudes of other communities.