​My name is Mark Lawler and I direct the work of the Ubomi Obutsha Centre.  If you are originally from the city of Port Elizabeth, you may or may not know me.  I am a 51-year-old white South African who ‘came of age’ at the time South Africa was transitioning from Apartheid to Democracy and, like many from my generation, I came to realise that the world I lived in was very different to the one I thought I grew up in. 

 

Over the years of my early adult life I went through the trauma of coming to terms with the propaganda I had grown up under and the true realities of the space I lived in.  Key societal privileges were removed from the reach of others different to me so that they could be more easily available to those like me.  This was not something that I had asked for, advocated for or agreed to but it was the way it was.  I struggled with the perceived finger of blame that always seemed pointed directly at me because of something I had never asked for, advocated for or agreed to.

 

I found, for myself, the only way through this trouble was to understand that the guilt of the past was not mine to carry but a greater responsibility for the future was! 

 

Privilege is not itself a bad thing.  Every parent works to give their children access to things they did not work for and children unknowingly receive stable foundations from which they can move forward.  Providing privilege for the next generation is how we all move forward over time. 

 

The problem in our South African story though, is that this opportunity to build privilege as a foundation for the next generation was denied to many because of the colour of their skin. 

 

I want to reach out to those South Africans who now live abroad and possibly built new lives somewhere else … 

People leave the place they come from for many different reasons. 

 

It doesn't matter what South African racial classification you are from, you are who you are and you are where you are in life, is because of where you are from and the privilege that place somehow gave you.

 

Help us to help families that were denied the opportunity to build privilege into their family legacy to do that now. 

​

This is not about the politics of the day, but a request from person to person ... family to family ... to help me give others the privilege of building privilege back into their family story, and hopefully giving their children the opportunity to become self supporting, net-positive contributors to society.