People behind the numbers

This post is about four courageous men: Mr. Mkoko, Mr. Sagati, Mr. Ndlagamandla and Mr. Mahaba.

It’s also about the remarkable thing they did that allowed me to find out about them: they all agreed to be featured in Jonathan Smith’s documentary film, They Go to Die.

The four men worked as gold miners in South Africa, and all contracted tuberculosis (TB) and HIV while working. After they were declared unfit to work, the mining hospitals discharged them to their homes in rural South Africa and Swaziland.

The problem? The mining companies sent them home without further treatment or provision for their future care. And they returned to areas with inadequate health care and resources that would help prolong their lives. Sent home to die – hence the film’s title, “They Go to Die” – which actually comes from public health references to the all too common practice of sending miners home when they become too ill to work.

Smith was an epidemiologist from Yale doing research on TB and HIV infections in the South African gold mining industry when he decided to make the film. He wasn’t a filmmaker, but he realised that decades of studies and statistics weren’t making any difference in the outcomes for miners – miners were still becoming infected, and they were still dying, and the industry practice was still continuing.

So Smith asked Mkoko, Sagati, Ndlagamandla and Mahaba if he could tell their stories, and they and their families agreed. They invited Smith to live in their homes and film their daily lives. Not only did they agree to open their homes to him, but they did so when they and their families were going through very difficult times.

By doing so, they’ve allowed Smith to put a human face on a shockingly neglected situation in which unacceptable numbers of miners contract TB and HIV as a result of their work, yet receive no compensation or care. Says Smith, “these men were my friends, and they died of a preventable, curable disease. But they were by no means outliers. In fact, they were representative of tens of thousands of men each year.”

Smith is now working to complete the film. He’s looking for resources and partnerships that can help him finish it – and help prompt industry and government action to prevent and deal with the epidemic. Part of this effort includes crowdsourcing to enable others to support the film, through a Kickstarter page. (If you do nothing else, please check it and the film trailer above out.) It also includes finishing the film in time to screen it at a meeting of mining sector CEOs and decision-makers later this year.

Smith notes that despite the film’s topic, this is not a film about death and disease. Its focus is the men and the relationships that sustain them, and the power of human connections. And it’s not just a film. Smith intends to use it to call for mining companies, unions and governments to be held accountable for mineworkers’ health and health care.

Statistics can be powerful. Studies show us, for example, that mineworkers are infected by TB at 28 times the rate of a WHO-declared emergency. Yet the numbers alone aren't changing the situation. Smith believes that if people understand how individuals have been affected, they’ll respond: “If we turn an epidemic into an emotion, then we motivate change.”

It’s an ambitious and important undertaking. Please check out Smith’s website, and his crowdsourcing site (before October 24, 2011 if you can). You’ll find out more about Mkoko, Sagati, Ndlagamandla and Mahaba and their families. And help lend a voice to people affected by this tragic and preventable situation.

"Let the lion speak"

I know, it's been a long time since I said I'd be back soon.... But here I am, with lots of ideas and more posts in the works.

First, I just have to tell you about Maya Wegerif. I learned about her poetry thanks to an article by Chambi Chachage on “The Dar es Salaam Renaissance” in Pambazuka News (see my Nov. 21 post for an overview of Pambazuka News). Chachage writes about the cultural movement taking place in Dar that’s giving rise to a new social consciousness, and Wegerif is one of the artists profiled.

Maya the Poet is from South Africa, and has lived in Tanzania and the United States. Her poetry is amazing – clever and profound. She writes about political, social, feminist, technological and personal issues. You can find her poems and spoken word performances at her website (and the earlier http://mayawegerif.blogspot.com/) and on YouTube.

I couldn’t resist posting her TEDxDar performance of “Who Tells Our Stories.” It gets right at the heart of one of this blog’s themes -- understanding how we choose to perceive “Africa” and “Africans” and why we need to think critically about who writes and tells Africa’s stories. And, borrowing from Maya the Poet's much more convincing words -- hear the lion speak.



(You can find the words to the poem at http://mayawegerif.blogspot.com/).

Saying no to violence

You might have heard the statistic recently: up to 70 percent of women in the world experience physical or sexual violence during their lifetimes.

If you've heard this or numbers like it, that's because November 25-December 10 are dedicated to raising awareness about and taking action on violence against women.

November 25 was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It also marked the start of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, incorporating International Women Human Rights Defenders Day on November 29 and ending on International Human Rights Day, December 10.

In Canada, today, December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. It commemorates the 1989 murders of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal.

The United Nations’ UNITE to End Violence Against Women campaign underlines that there are many forms of violence against women, and that these are not confined to a specific culture, region or country. But since this blog is about Africa, and in honour of December 6, today’s post will feature 6 groups in Sub-Saharan Africa who are working to address gender violence:

1. Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), Zimbabwe: WOZA is a civic movement advocating for Zimbabwean women and their families. It has over 75,000 members, both women and men. For WOZA, November 29 is not only International Women Human Rights Defenders Day but the date in 2006 when hundreds of its members were beaten and arrested while peacefully launching the WOZA People’s Charter. WOZA has conducted hundreds of protests since 2003 and over 3,000 of its members and leaders have been wrongfully arrested while exercising their constitutional rights.

2. Mothertongue, South Africa:  Mothertongue is an artists’ collective that supports women to tell their stories through performing, visual and literary arts and art therapies. This enables women who are victims of violence to self-heal and gain awareness of their rights. It also challenges society’s silencing of women. Mothertongue cites the example of a woman whose husband infected her with HIV and then forced her out of her home, who started legal action against him. Mothertongue, with support from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Trust Fund To End Violence Against Women, brought together 28 women in Khayelitsha near Cape Town who were HIV-positive and survivors of gender-based violence to develop performances based on their experiences. This helped them in their own healing and in supporting other women in the community.

3. Tisunge Ana Athu Akhazi Coalition (TAAAC) / Let’s Protect Our Girl Children, Zambia: TAAAC is a coalition of 9 organisations working to fight sexual violence against girls in Zambia. It advocates for judicial reform to stop violence against women and girls, and supports the Safe Spaces program for educating school children about their rights. Safe Spaces teaches girls about HIV and AIDS, puberty, gender stereotypes and human rights, and provides physical space for them to meet together. It also teaches boys about respect for girls, and gender roles. (Let’s Protect Our Girl Children is also a recipient of a UNIFEM Trust Fund Grant.)

4. The New Sudanese Indigenous NGO Network, Sudan: NESI-Network is one of 16 organisations and individuals that the Nobel Women’s Initiative is highlighting during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. This 22-member network of organisations throughout Sudan seeks to strengthen civil society and to enhance the dignity of people regardless of ethnicity, gender or religion.

5. Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRRDOC), Nigeria: CIRRDOC supports women survivors of violence and works to halt violence and the spread of HIV through various mechanisms such as the creation of anti-violence committees headed by men, including traditional leaders:




6. Raising Voices, Uganda: Raising Voices is a project that along with the Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention in Kampala aims to prevent violence against women. It uses a model of community mobilisation called SASA -- a Kiswahili word that means "now" as well as an acronym for Start, Awareness, Support, Action --  to stop violence and the spread of HIV, by raising awareness of power imbalances and how to address them:




Stopping violence against women requires action at many levels, and by all of us.

Poetry and then some

I’m overwhelmed by the wealth and breadth of poetry coming out of Sub-Saharan Africa. There’s much to explore, but in today’s post I thought I’d mention the Poetry Africa festival.

Poetry Africa is an international festival that takes place annually in Durban, South Africa. It’s now in its 14th year. Two months ago (October 4-9), 20 poets from 12 countries – including South Africa, Jamaica, Palestine, Australia, India, Uruguay, Italy and Senegal – performed their poetry. Associated events were held in Cape Town, Harare (Zimbabwe) and Blantyre (Malawi).

Here are three of the South African poets who participated:

Gcina Mhlope / Photo courtesy Poetry Africa

Gcina Mhlophe: a poet, storyteller, playwright, director, author, singer, actress and activist whose work addresses themes such as apartheid and patriarchy. She also created the group Zanendaba Storytellers as a means of revitalising storytelling traditions.

Pitika Ntuli / Photo courtesy Poetry Africa

Pitika Ntuli: a poet, artist, sculptor and professor who uses myth and history in his poetry. He’s also played advisory roles on arts and culture, indigenous knowledge and traditional leadership. He’s even written his bio as a poem.

Lebo Mashile / Photo courtesy http://www.lebomashile.com/fanclub/

Lebogang Mashile: a poet, performer, actress, writer, columnist, TV presenter and producer. She sees poetry as a means of changing attitudes in post-apartheid South Africa; her website quotes her as saying, "The enemy isn’t really clear in the way it was before. It’s an incredibly sensitive, complicated struggle with many dimensions, but the site for that struggle is inside. ...The language of poetry comes from a place where that transformation has to begin, that sort of intuitive, creative, spiritual searching place that will be the fuel for any kind of transformation process." Mashile co-founded the Feel a Sistah! Spoken Word Collective, acted in the film Hotel Rwanda, and collaborated with choreographer Sylvia Glasser to create the contemporary dance performance Threads. She deals with issues that include women and violence, identity, and South African society and politics.

Here's a performance by Lebo Mashile earlier this year:


Lebo Mashile - Poet/ Writer/Producer from Thabo Thindi on Vimeo.
　
The Poetry Africa Festival is organised by the University of Kwazulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts. The Centre also hosts the Time of the Writer festival, the Durban International Film Festival,  and the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Festival.

Global grandmothers

I started this blog to highlight the work of Africans who are providing new or alternative perspectives about the continent. But I also started it to support the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s A Dare To Remember Campaign, which assists communities in Sub-Saharan Africa dealing with HIV/AIDS.

AIDS is not an “African” issue – it’s a global one. Nor is it the only health issue facing Africans. But HIV/AIDS is part of the picture for all too many people.

December 1 is World AIDS Day. So I’m going to write today's and tomorrow's posts about people who are dealing with the challenges of HIV and AIDS in their daily lives.

In yesterday’s post I referred to the value of listening to the stories of communities. Stories are important: they help us imagine ourselves in someone else’s place. Stories allow us to glimpse each other’s realities. That’s the first step in understanding not only how other people’s lives are different, but how they are similar to our own.

Here’s one story: that of Maria Mhlongo, a grandmother in South Africa.

Pius Adesanmi, a Nigerian writer and academic who has written about the idea of “Africa” (and who I'll feature in an upcoming post), commented to me that some things that we think of as “African” are on closer look, human qualities.

Some people reflect those shared qualities. I want to mention in particular the "Kilimanjaro Grannies." They are six Canadian grandmothers living in and around Ottawa who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2007 to raise money for HIV/AIDS. The climb was the idea of Gisele Lalonde Mansfield, who decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in memory of her brother Michel who died of AIDS in 1995. She heard two African grandmothers interviewed on Canada AM and contacted the Stephen Lewis Foundation to offer support.

Mansfield was joined on the adventure by Liza Badham, Trudy Stephen, Tina Cuerrier, Barbara Carriere and Janet Carrière. Together they’ve raised $84,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. They’re also raising funds to build a camp in Eastern Ontario for people living with HIV and AIDS, and their families. The Kilimanjaro Grannies have written a book about their experience, called Kilimanjaro: A Purposeful Journey. More information is available at www.kiligrannies.com.

AIDS is a global issue, and caring and supporting are univeral traits.

Memory

Sam Nzima is a South African photographer whose work for a long time went unrecognized – but he also has a place in history.

On June 16, 1976, Sam Nzima was in Soweto working as a photojournalist for The World newspaper. On that day, thousands of school students in Soweto took to the streets to protest the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. As the children gathered, police used tear gas to stop them, then started firing.

Sam Nzima took several photos that day, but one captured a moment that hasn’t been forgotten. The photo shows a young man carrying a child. The child is limp, and the young man is crying. A girl, pain etched on her face, runs beside them. The child being carried is Hector Pieterson, twelve years old and one of the first children to have been shot and killed that day. The boy carrying him is Mbuyisa Makhubo, while the girl running beside them is Hector’s sister Antoinette.

Sam Nzima’s photo was published by The World and then flashed around the world on news wires. It made people realize what was happening in South Africa, and helped prompt greater international action against apartheid. Yet Nzima was forced to hide from the police and he declined further work as a photojournalist because of concerns about his security. It also took him years to regain copyright of his famous photograph. He ended up opening up a shop, serving as a homeland member of parliament, and then opening a school of photography in Bushbuckridge.

I’m privileged to say that I once met Sam Nzima. I was in Johannesburg in the late 1990s, visiting projects for the development organization I was working for. I and a colleague from Ottawa took some time to go to a spot in Soweto near where the Hector Pieterson Memorial, which opened in 2002, is now.

We entered a three-sided structure housing a display of photographs. Some of the photos showed scenes of Soweto. Others were of then-President and Hillary Clinton in a recent visit. But the photo which caught my attention was black and white. I recognized the image immediately. It was the photo of Hector Pieterson, his friend and his sister.

As I stood taking it in, a man who had been standing near the display came over. He said, quietly, "I was the photographer who took that picture."

As his words sunk in, I realized that he had taken this famous photo; he had been at this scene. He was the person who had informed the world about Hector Pieterson and the other schoolchildren who had been so brutally killed. I gathered my wits enough to begin to ask him questions about the circumstances of his being at this place on that day.

Overhearing our conversation, a fellow visitor came closer. She was an American woman who had been commenting loudly on everything in the area so far. She piped up with what I imagine was her most pressing question: "Were you here when the Clintons came?" Yes, answered Nzima. "Did you meet them?" she was desperate to know. Then, "What was Hillary Clinton wearing?"

At that moment, I saw the chasm between this woman’s world view and mine. For me, the history of deep injustice that pervaded this soil, and the profound changes that had taken place to allow us to be standing as tourists on this spot, were what was significant. That we were meeting the photographer, Sam Nzima, who had galvanized the world to take notice of South Africa was an enormous privilege. For her, the meetingwas a way for her to get a closer glimpse of her own celebrities.
As I looked into this later, though, I realized that the Clintons’ trip to South Africa was the first by an American president. To an American, the experience of meeting Sam Nzima might well have symbolized a bridge between South Africa and her own country. I guess we each have our own markers of significant events and people in our lives.

For me, one significant person will always be Sam Nzima. You can see a short BBC video of Sam Nzima and an exhibit of his photos here. You can also read more about him.

Song of life

Vusi Mahlasela performing at FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony
Photo courtesy http://www.vusimahlasela.com/

I first heard Vusi Mahlasela’s music after returning home from a trip to Johannesburg. I’d picked up one of his CDs at the airport before my flight out, not knowing exactly what to expect. I figured I’d chosen well when during my stopover in Nairobi, one of my trusted Kenyan colleagues expressed his approval for my choice. But it was when I got the CD home that I realised how lucky I was. Mahlasela’s voice and guitar blew me away.

Mahlasela grew up during apartheid in South Africa. He became active as a boy and then a young man in the anti-apartheid movement. He also began singing and playing guitar as a boy and his songs and poetry took on political and social themes.

Mahlasela’s website describes him as a "singer-songwriter and poet-activist." His songs are moving, joyful and full of hope. Mahlasela speaks out about racism and intolerance, and works for change. He created the Vusi Mahlasela Music Development Foundation  to promote African music. He is also an official ambassador to Nelson Mandela’s HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign called 46664 (Mandela’s prison number during his 27 years on Robben Island).

Vusi Mahlasela continues to tour internationally, and is releasing a new album called Say Africa in early 2011.

But enough from me. You have to listen to him: