ACTIV ISTS WRITE i

ACTIVISTS WRITE

Issue 2/August 2015

NDiFUNA UKWAZi FELLOWS WRiTE

ABOUT THEiR LiVES

ACTIV ISTS WRITE i i i i i

FOREWORDPHUMEZA MLUNGANA, GENERAL SECRETARY, SOCIAL JUSTICE COALITION

So do activists write? Yes, we write emails and pho ne messages all the

time and when we have to, we write re-ports and sometimes affidavits, but we don’t usually get round to writing about our own lives.

Last year, Ndifuna Ukwazi published a first collection, Activists Write 2014, with life stories and poems by 15 activists from Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Inkululeko in Mind in Khayelitsha. In this second collection, Activists Write 2015, you will hear more than 30 voices, from a range of organisations in Khayelitsha and Manenberg: SJC and Inkululeko in Mind, but also Treatment Action Campaign, Equal Education, Free Gender and Manenberg Youth. The youngest writer is just 18, the oldest in her 50s, and women writers are in the majority – including activist-mothers with their impressive multi-tasking.

The activist-writers write about growing up in different communities, rural and urban, about their org anisations and how they themselves came to be ac-tivists, what they have learned along the way and what keeps them going.

Most of the stories have a lively, posi-tive vibe but they deal with painful strug-gles around poverty, youth unemploy-ment, unequal education, lack of facilities, gangsterism and crime, depression and loss of hope. The writers reflect on how their own lives have been changed in and through their organisations. They write about solidarity, activist training and ex-perience, challenges and celebrations, work still to be done in our communities and dreams still to be realised.

The writing grew out of “English for Confidence” courses at Ndifuna Ukwazi, facilitated by Carohn Cornell who edited the collections. The courses are part of an

activist training programme for partner or-ganisations that includes politics, law and society, struggle history, and leadership training. Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories. Please keep writing to moti-vate and push the rest of us to reflect and write our own stories and the stories of our organisations and campaigns.

Let me end by quoting from the group poem that was written in one of the classes and performed at the Ndifuna Ukwazi graduation:

We are the young people of Khayelitsha

and Manenberg - just listen to our voices!

… Let us work together to make change

happen.

Let us work together for a brighter future.

… We are the young people of

Khayelitsha and Manenberg - just listen to

our voices!

ACTIV ISTS WRITE 1 iV

CONTENTS

Foreword – PHUMEZA MLUNGWANA, SOCIAL JUSTICE COALITION (SJC) i

“Suikerwater” and Social Justice – XOLISWA MBADLISA, SJC 01

Shebeen story with a difference – NIXOLE MONGAMELI, EQUAL EDUCATION 05

“I wanted to tell you” – APHIWE MIKANA, FREE GENDER 07

Street Corner Story – SINETHEMBA MATYOBENI, TREATMENT ACTION CAMPAIGN (TAC) 09

“What unites us” – ASHEEQUAH ISAACS, MANENBERG YOUTH 11

My Education Journey – SITHEMBELE TONGA, EQUAL EDUCATION 12

Learning to be a leader – SINETHEMBA MTEZA, TAC 14

“Whatever you are doing outside, remember … ” – ATHENKOSI NKAMPULE, INKULULEKO IN MIND 16

“To be an independent woman” – NELISWA NKWALI, TAC 18

“Activists are like soldiers” – THOZAMA MATABATA, FREE GENDER 20

“It makes my heart at peace” – THEOPATRA (THEO) MASALAZA, FREE GENDER 22

Grabbing leadership skills – SINDISA MONAKALI, SJC 23

“Our daily reality” – CATRIONA PEARCE, MANENBERG YOUTH 24

“For our children’s future and our own” – BANELE PONI, EQUAL EDUCATION 25

“It takes a village” – RELEBOHILE MOJAKISANE, EQUAL EDUCATION 27

“To be part of the change” – ASANDA PAYI, EQUAL EDUCATION 28

“That was when activism hit me” – XHAMLA HOBO, EQUAL EDUCATION 29

“To be able to stand up for our rights” – NOMANDLA MDLUDLU, EQUAL EDUCATION 30

“The vibe is dignified” – SIZWE MAPOPO, EQUAL EDUCATION 31

Law and Social Justice – PHUMZILE TYULU, SJC 32

My Activist Journey – PAMELLA NTSHUNTSHA, TAC 33

“The strength of the Comrades” – THEMBISA PHILEMON, TAC 34

“It gives me some hope” – NOSIPHELELE MSESIWE, SJC 36

How do activist-mothers cope? – ZUKISWA QEZO, KHANYISWA GXOTHANI, MALWANDE MSONGELWA, NOMTHETHO NDZIMA, SJC 38

Activist Gogo – SYLVIA LEPHEMA, SJC AND EQUAL EDUCATION PARENTS 42

Running for freedom, running for love – NOZUKO NGUGO, NDIFUNA UKWAZI 43

“Then the white car stopped” – OLWETHU MXOLI AND THOBEKA BOBOTYANE, SJC 45

Activists against vigilante violence – CRAIG OOSTHUIZEN, NDIFUNA UKWAZI 47

Street Soccer for Community Safety – NKOSIKHONA SWARTBOOI, SJC 48

Group Poem, December 2014 – NDIFUNA UKWAZI FELLOWS 50

Open letter to activists, December 2014 – ASEEL ZAHRAN, NDIFUNA UKWAZI 52

Published by Ndifuna Ukwazicontact@nu.org.za Office 302, 47 on Strand Strand Street Cape Town 021 423 3089

Design and layout by Chloë Swingewood

Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) provides strategic legal services, research capacity and training oppor-tunities to social movements and community based organisations in joint campaigns.

NDIFUNA UKWAZI IS SUPPORTED BY

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“SUIKERWATER” AND SOCIAL JUSTICEXOLISWA MBADLISA, SJC

I was born in the Eastern Cape in a small town called Elliot surrounded by the

Drakensburg Mountains. In winter we enjoyed playing with the snow, building houses and making snowmen. My mother said I was a quiet child but my twin brother gave her a tough time. We were seven children, five girls and two boys. Unfortunately my eldest sister has passed away so we are now six. We girls used to play together with our brothers and we did the housework together, washing the dishes and clothes. We also cleaned the yard together. There were no cows, sheep or goats for the boys to look after so they shared the girls’ work. This helped us a lot and as a result my brothers learned how to cook and do their laundry. I raised my son the same way so that he knows how to do everything.

My mother was a hard worker and my father was also working but he used to come home empty-handed. We didn’t grow up like other children who always knew there was something for them to eat. Sometimes we just drank “suiker-water” [sugar water]. We were very happy when we saw our mother coming with mielie meal. Some people used to laugh at us because they knew we were strug-gling. Things were better when our father

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SHEBEEN STORY WITH A DIFFERENCENIXOLE MONGAMELI, EQUAL EDUCATION

My name is Nixole meaning “peace” and my friends’ call me “Nix”. My

parents were very young when I was born and my name was to give the message to my grandparents that they wanted to live in peace. My mother (who is “coloured”) came from Kimberly in the Northern Cape and my father (who is Xhosa) came from King Williams’s Town in the Eastern Cape. I am a Cape borner and grew up in Khayelitsha but regard myself as a mix of urban and rural background.

My father ran a shebeen, a tavern, in our house and I was brought up in the shebeen. It was the only shebeen in our area, with a juke box and vibe. My father liked being his own boss - he didn’t want to work for anyone, black or white. When I came home from school I didn’t have a chance to play with my friends as my dad and I would help each other behind the counter. I was still in preschool when he taught me how to count money and showed me how to pack alcohol neatly in the fridge. He also taught me that cus-tomers are always right, even if some are rude when they are drunk.

My mother had a sleep-in job so she came home on weekends or sometimes only at month end. It was hard for my

was working in our home town and when he went on pension he built us a big, beautiful house with furniture inside, before he passed away in 1996. Some of those who used to laugh at us are now uneducated and some are even beggars but we help them where we can.

My mother is my role model. She was not educated but she always encour-aged us to go to school and she taught me to be honest and always stand up for what I know is right.

Let me fast forward to my life as an activist. I passed matric in 1990, in 2000 I came to Cape Town and became a domestic worker, the work I did until re-cently. In 2011 I joined an organisation called Social Justice Coalition (SJC); in 2012 I became chairperson of my branch and older people came in numbers during my presence; in 2013 I became deputy chairperson of SJC and in 2014 I participated in Leadership Training in the fellowship programme at Ndifuna Ukwazi, with branch leaders of SJC. In 2015 I was employed full-time in SJC’s team of Community Advocates which is a great challenge and opportunity for me.

SJC was formed in 2008 during that terrible time of xenophobia. We want to see all people united, black and white, and accepting and loving people who come from different countries. In the communities where xenophobic vio-lence happened, especially in informal settlements, there were (and still are) lots of challenges around housing, electricity, water and toilets. SJC promised to work together with communities, helping them to get their rights, and that is what motivated me to join. We are trying to educate our communities about SJC and recruit many people to join us so that we can speak with one voice and be heard as community members.

Let me mention that before we had our organisation, people used to hate

and even attack gays and lesbians in our community. As branch members we had some workshops about hate crime and human rights and we invited commu-nity members. Now gays and lesbians are walking free in our community and some have joined our branches.

As SJC our one big campaign is for Criminal Justice. We know that some-times dockets go missing so cases do not come to court and some commu-nity members are not informed about their cases. We want to see the police doing their jobs and winning the trust of the community again, not being en-emies to our communities. I will never forget the time we won our case at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg for the Commission of Inquiry into Policing in Khayelitsha to go ahead. Our other big campaign is for Safe, Healthy Sanitation. We want to see the City of Cape Town giving clean, safe toilets to our informal settlements and our aim is for the people of South Africa to get flushing toilets, not the bucket system. There must be janitors too, people who are responsible for cleaning and repairing the toilets. Decent sanitation is the residents’ right.

We did a lot of pickets and protests in town and we still do. One cold night we slept outside Parliament, joining Equal Education, one of our partner organisa-tions. They had mobilised the commu-nity to support their campaign to get the Department of Education to establish Minimum Norms and Standards for our

schools, to build better schools, and to have libraries and laboratories and well-trained teachers. I was excited to be part of the protest but I was also scared of being beaten by the police or robbed by the gangs. My family did not want me to go because they were worried we would be arrested but I told them I was fighting for my rights and for the rights of all our children to a decent education.

As an activist you must be prepared to take some risks. We have to try to make the government listen to our problems but not demolish what we already have. I would like to see my organisation not only in Khayelitsha but nationally, and even in other countries with the same challenges.

Through SJC, our partner Ndifuna Ukwazi and the Popular Education Network, I am getting leadership training that will help me to be strong, not to un-dermine myself, and to lead by example. I used to be a quiet person who liked to do my own thing but I have learned to be more outgoing and share ideas with people, even playing a part in drama during our trainings and sometimes chairing meetings. It’s just that being an activist means I don’t have enough time to clean my house and my yard or visit my family!

“We want to see all people united, black and white, and accepting and loving people who come from different countries.”