Get updates by RSS
Update #7: Pleasure & Pain
The exhibition launch last week was fantastic. There were two events, the first in Khayelitsha Township where most of the grandmothers live. This was attended by almost all the members of GAPA in the area, as well as some family members. Over 50 grandmothers sang and danced their way around the exhibition. Two days later was the launch in the City, at the District Six Museum. For our overseas friends, the D6 Museum commemorates the hundreds of people of all races evicted from this community during apartheid, and was a highly appropriate setting for the exhibition as some of the grandmothers lived in the area before being thrown out by the apartheid government. The event was marked by more singing and dancing by the grandmothers and more speeches. Notable was the keynote speech by acclaimed writer & poet Sindiwe Magona. Below is a poem of hers that I read at the launch.
Her poem, powerful and poignant, takes on a new intensity given the news today that Hebron Bekwa, the son of one of the grandmothers, Beauty Sejosengoe, died 2 days ago. Hebron died of cancer, later complicated by other illnesses. I also attach a photo of the family from the exhibition. Mrs Sejosengoe, her son Hebron Bekwe and granddaughter Nolufefe Bekwa.
Poem © Sindiwe Magona
Please, take photographs
Go to the nearest or cheapest electronic goods store
And there, buy cameras by the score.
Hurry! Go! Go! Go!
Then go home; gather your family and
Take photographs of them all
Especially, the children; especially, the young,
Hurry! Hurry! Take photos of them all
Before it is too late.
Take photographs of the children
Take photographs of them playing
Take photographs of them crying
Take photographs of them reading their best books
Or doing their chores – But –
Hurry! Hurry! Before it is too late.
Take photos of the children kneeling, busy at cat’s cradle
Take photos of them naked and dancing in the rain
Take photos of them fast asleep in their cozy beds
Take photos of them in their school uniforms; their Sunday best, Or ragged day dress.
But, please, hurry and take photos of the children,
Before it is too late
Before all the children are gone –
Before the promise that is their life
Is snuffed, easy as candle light.
Your sons, so fearless, call sex with condoms
Eating candy with the wrapper on.
Perhaps their coffins they’ll call castles
The ant and worm their company, slaves who do their every bidding.
Please, take photographs, and tell the children why –
Take photos, before the young perish, to the very last.
Take photographs! Take photographs, and put them on the walls.
So the image of the dear face will forever live on.
I know, small comfort is a picture, your son or daughter gone.
Cold is a photo, from it comes not warmth nor smile nor hug.
A photo does not laugh; it will not go to the shop for you
Or be solace in your old age.
But, take photographs! Take photographs
So on birthdays and other days of remembrance
You can point to the picture on the wall and say –
Vusi would’ve been thirty today, perhaps with a
Young one and yet another on the way.
Take photos, take photos, before all the children are gone.
Before our tomorrow is no more –
Halved, at best, by the plague that comes with love;
Helped by the children who will not believe their Dying –
And men who grew up in bone structure
The feet and inches, from the ground, sprouting.
Men who escaped the meaning of the passage of the years.
Who shot up, went to school – some;
But escaped the meaning of Social Responsibility.
To such souls, respect, respectable, respectability,
Are long dead; forget morality!
Doomed, despicable, craven images of humanity.
Please, hurry! Take photographs of all the children, now!
Take photos, for tomorrow they will be gone.
Take photos! Take photos of the children…
Children who will not see thirty.
Children who will never…grow…old.
Never..............grow.......................old
- Copyright Sindiwe Magona
Update #6: AMATSAH NTLIZIYO - "The Never Give-Ups"
An invitation to the opening of:
An exhibit celebrating an extraordinary group of grandmothers
Photographs by Eric Miller - With text by Jo-Anne Smetherham
On Thursday 21 July at 18h00 - At the District Six Museum- Homecoming Centre.
Corner Buitenkant & Caledon Str. Cape Town.
Exhibit runs 22 July -30 August Mon:09h00-13h00 Tuesday-Saturday: 09h00-16h00
For More Information: http://thenevergiveups.wordpress.com/
Update #5: Well Done Everyone!
Tonight at about 22h30 South African time, we reached target!
An enormous round of applause to all 78 people who now inspire and challenge us to finish this work.
As the Danes like to say..... "A Thousand Thank You's"
Update #4: Last update before deadline!
Our enormous thanks go to all the friends, colleagues, students and strangers who have stepped up in support of this project.
We salute the vision,commitment and enthusiasm of Jennifer Fish, Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University, and we acknowledge the incredible talent and perseverance of Savannah Eck, graduate student at ODU, whose energy has carried this project forward.
This is our last update before deadline; clips of interviews with three of the grannies, a further insight into their lives and experiences.
We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Grandmothers of GAPA, for having allowed us extraordinary access into their lives, homes, families and stories. For sharing with us their hopes, sadness, struggles and wisdom.
We will post details of dates and locations of the exhibition at a later time.
Thank you all.
Jo & Eric
Update #3: 3rd Update: Mrs Mdaka and her daughter Phyllis.
The journey continues. And we continue to be touched by the generosity and responses from people who learn about this project, thanks to you all for your pledges and feedback.
A big thanks also to those people who have passed details of this project on via their Facebook, Twitter or other connections, such support is enormously helpful!
We continue the theme of the updates with an interview with Alicia Mdaka and her daughter Phyllis.
Mrs Mdaka is nursing her dying daughter, Phyllis
" Phyllis has been my one leg – the other one is God. If she dies, I don’t think I’ll be alright.
It was Phyllis who bought me a stove when she was working, and tiles for my house and my blue bath. She has been my breadwinner. But she is dying of Aids. She will be my third to go this way.
I went to see her in her house weeks ago and found her so weak she couldn’t wash herself. Now she is at my house, sleeping in my bed with me.
Sometimes I think, “Why me? God, why should I have suffered so much all these years?” But I’m praying that God must give me strength. And I continue as I am going, because I can’t do otherwise. I’ve given my heart to Phyllis, to be responsible for her."
79
Backers
$7,040
pledged of $7,000 goal
0
seconds to go
Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on January 12, 2011.
Pledge $1 or more Pledge $1 or more
If you pledge 1 dollar to 24 dollars you will receive a grandmother portrait post card containing a heart felt thank you message from one of the grandmothers at GAPA.
Pledge $25 or more Pledge $25 or more
If you pledge 25 dollars to 99 dollars you will receive a special thank you letter along with a homemade AIDS awareness beaded pin made by the grandmothers of GAPA.
Pledge $100 or more Pledge $100 or more
If you pledge 100 dollars to 499 dollars you will receive a special archival professional print of a South African "Super Granny".
Pledge $500 or more Pledge $500 or more
If you pledge $500 dollars of more your name will appear on the Thank You page in the printed book of the photographs when it is launched and you will also receive an archival professional print of a "Super Granny."
Project By
Has not connected their Facebook account.
--Savannah Eck-- (B.A., Old Dominion University) is a graduate student at Old Dominion University studying to get her degree in International Relations: Conflict and Cooperation with a certificate in Women’s Studies. She is an avid supporter of women’s rights and recently worked at GAPA on a service learning study abroad. Her motivation lies in continued work for women and human rights advocacy. GAPA’s model has inspired her personal commitment to continue to lend her voice as a means to both enhance their service and work and advocate for the larger development goals central to the tangible work of this organization.
--Eric Miller--is one of the most experienced photojournalists working in South Africa. In the 1980s, he documented the struggle against apartheid and since the 1990s he covered various aspects of the transformation process in South Africa, as well as travelling extensively across Africa for various European publications. He has worked on a range of assignments, from news-related stories covering the horrors of the Rwandan genocide and famine in Sudan, to human interest features such as women's boxing, the training of sangomas (traditional healers) and various evocative essays documenting social issues in local communities across the continent. Miller works as a freelancer, mostly on assignment for a variety of European newspapers and magazines, as well as for both South African and international NGOs.
--Jennifer N. Fish-- (Ph.D., American University) is Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University, where she also teaches in the Graduate Program in International Studies and leads annual global studies courses in South Africa. Her research interests focus on post-conflict development, with particular emphasis on women’s roles in restructuring society. For the past fifteen years, she has worked on South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy through appointments with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, the University of Cape Town, and consultancies with the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union, the Commission on Gender Equality, and Grandmothers Against Poverty and AIDS.
--Jo-Anne Smetherham-- has been thrashing about with words for more than 12 years as a newspaper and magazine journalist. She is passionate about covering health, education, the environment and other issues of social justice, but has also written many stories about general news, human interest and travel. She started off as health writer for the Cape Times, the English morning daily newspaper in Cape Town, then worked in Dublin sub-editing for Ireland on Sunday and the Irish Independent. Now she is freelancing. Her writing has appeared in all daily Independent titles in South Africa as well as South Africa’s Sunday Independent, Ireland on Sunday, the Irish Independent, local magazines Men’s Health, Best Life, Femina, Marie Claire and Weg!/Go!. Real greatness, she believes, comes from behaving in extraordinary ways, in near-impossible circumstances. She has discovered many such stories of greatness in South Africa – but the grannies’ stories come out tops. Excerpts from some of her recent work can be found on www.outwrite.co.za
