June 2020 – Afrika Tikkun South Africa

Our young people speak out against Violence against Women and Children

Hlengiwe Nsibanyoni –
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way

My name is Hlengiwe Nsibanyoni, a 16-year-old girl from Alexandra. Woman and children abuse is a terrifying thing that makes me angry and causes me to live in trepidation.

I took part in 16 Days of Activism to help raise awareness on what is happening in the world and the impact abuse has in the lives of woman and children. My artwork is about a young lady who is beaten up by her husband and thrown out of the house with her child. I did this artwork because I have seen a lot of ladies being kicked out of the house with their children.

To those who abuse, I demand that you all stop because you are destroying our wonderful world and souls. To our victims, I want you all to never let people and their negative comments get in your way of speaking out. Speak out because you are doing it for you and not for them. The lawmakers must make programs that will bring awareness about abuse and the killing of our woman and children.

As a society, we should report if we see or hear of a person being abused. Please report his or her case and try your best to help that person to get out from that abusive relationship. Let’s stand together and fight against any form of abuse and killing of our woman and children.

Artist Hlengiwe Nsibanyonyi

Miriam Ntondele – Violence and abuse are factors that ravish and harm our current societies, especially the women and children who suffer from it.

I’m 16 years old and an upcoming visual artist. Born and raised in the inner city of Johannesburg, it was quite difficult to adapt to the manner of how humanity was portrayed there. This is the reason why I confide and communicate through art.

Violence and abuse are factors that ravish and harm our current societies, especially the women and children who suffer the most from it. My take on violence against women and child abuse is that I stand strongly against it. Honestly speaking it feels like abuse is a habit nowadays and it should be put to an end. Harming and killing a woman or child is putting an end to the life of someone’s mother, aunt, sister and caregiver without thinking that that child or woman could have been our next big thing. We should put an end to this because life should be respected and cherished and so should the rights of women and children.

I took part in 16 Days Of Activism because I found it a great platform to overcome my fear to showcase my art. However, my main aim was to communicate and enlighten our society on harmful practices such as rape, which we seem to have normalized. It’s an opportunity to encourage change in our society.

My art piece describes the agony and pain a woman has to carry over her head, which symbolizes the burden she has to endure. Her red tears tell of the intensity of her cries, the cries that everyone has ignored and hence have left her alone with her despair. The inspiration surfaced from the things I’ve witnessed, experienced mostly in my surroundings.

My message and motto to those who harm and abuse woman and children is that they respect and acknowledge that violence causes harm not only in the society but to their victim, physically and mentally. Humanity should be respected and the rights of human beings should be respected.

If you’ve have been a victim of abuse I would highly advise you report to the police or rather someone you trust, because protecting your abuser is a possible step closer to more harm or your death.

As for the lawmakers, I demand that they listen to the cries of the victims and put the perpetrators behind bars and not normalize abuse such as rape and emotional abuse. The kids were given access to CBD gummies made specifically for kids to allow them relief from the trauma, anxiety, and depression that resulted from this abuse.

And as for our fellow adults, they should listen to the shouts and screams of the victims and not normalize abuse. They should rather help to encourage change. Harmony, respect, love and integrity should be portrayed and expressed in our societies. Let’s come together as one to create a better world for our upcoming generations and change our harmful norms.

South Africa (03 June 2020) – Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term meaning “humanity.” It is often translated as “I am because we are,” or “humanity towards others,” or in Xhosa, “umntu ngumntu ngabantu” but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.”

And Ubuntu is the philosophy we need to all follow right now!

As a philanthropist rather than a psychologist I know more about people helping each other than I know about why they do it. What I know at the moment is that we’re seeing much more in the way of actual help for those affected by coronavirus than I’ve seen for any other cause, anywhere in South Africa, ever.

I’m not saying that South Africans are not usually a generous bunch. My experience is that many of us give what we can financially when a cause captures our attention; whether a monthly debit order to the charities of our choice or R5 every time we park our car in a public space, but we don’t often give time or intelligence. We’re too busy or don’t have the headspace to think about what is actually required.

Let’s be clear about this: money is much appreciated and always gratefully received. That said, I often wonder how much better our country would fare if our brightest minds got together and came up with long-term solutions to the very real problems, so many of our people face daily.

But with coronavirus, it’s different. Everyone is doing something to help and not just financially. Coronavirus has spurned a hands-on approach to helping that we’ve not seen in South Africa since the demise of Apartheid and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why?

My simple answer is because of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu literally means humanity towards others, and it’s not some crazy tribal construct, it’s a real philosophy that permeates this country and all that live here.

For the first time ever in this country, everyone feels the same sense of helplessness. In situations like this, the human condition is to freeze or fight. It’s relatively easy to bury your head in the sand – or write a cheque – when you’re not personally involved in something. But with coronavirus, everyone is involved. Everyone is afraid, and everyone is affected in some way. It’s impossible to freeze when you’re surrounded by very real suffering.

No one has a choice but to fight and get involved because every one of us personally knows someone who is hungry. There’s nothing more sobering than a close-up view of the extreme poverty in our country. We really need to pay attention because more than 1 million people are on the brink of food insecurity in our country right now.

I’m actively involved in running several philanthropic organisations that operate across townships and public hospitals and healthcare. At the start of lockdown, we put all our money into creating 40,000 food parcels to get people through a month of hardship. That was back when we thought lockdown was going to last three weeks. As we head for double that length of time, what now? An estimated 30 million South Africans require food parcels. And don’t get me started on the volume of masks and sanitiser required.

As all of our personal and corporate financial reserves start to wane, those of us with something are going to have to learn to do with a great deal less so that we can share with those who don’t have any.

What does that look like? Maybe we buy four cabbages instead of one tiny punnet of asparagus and give three cabbages away. Maybe we learn to grow food and teach others how to do it. And maybe we learn to listen to what people need, which may well be a bag of pap rather than a bag of sandwiches.

The ingenuity we’ve already seen amongst our fellow South Africans has sustained us, sort of. It’s the clothing factories converted into production lines for masks, ensuring continued employment for their workers and health safety for others, and the food manufacturers creating low-cost, high-nutrition, easy-to-distribute food packs, and the generosity of the neighbour who shares what they have with those that don’t that will keep us limping along.

Everyone, in the true spirit of Ubuntu, needs to keep coming up with new ideas. For instance, you know all those loyalty points you collect but never use. Most loyalty card schemes are now allowing you to donate them to feeding schemes. Do it! Apply your mind and come up with your own ideas about how you can make a meaningful difference.

As South Africa heads into week nine of lockdown, the needier our people become. As you give, give enough so that your recipients can share with a friend or neighbour. In other parts of the world that’s called conscious capitalism. In South Africa, it’s called Ubuntu.

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