Awards 2008 : Category Finalists
Arts, Culture and Communications • Business Entrepreneurs • Education • Health • Science & Technology • Social Welfare • Sport
Arts, Culture and Communications
Ms Andile Gaelesiwe is a sexual rights campaigner, an accomplished artist and radio and television presenter who has been awarded the prestigious Clinton Democracy Fellowship for youth leadership strengthening democracy through citizen service and the Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurship.
Ms Gaelesiwe received these fellowships for the work she has been doing at the Open Disclosure Foundation (ODF), a healing centre which she founded in 2001 in aid of survivors of sexual violence.
The decision to start ODF followed after Ms Gaelesiwe at the age of 27 finally found the courage to publicly disclose her pain as a victim of sexual violence. She spoke on the radio station YFM where she worked as a guest DJ about her nightmare experience when her own father raped her as an eleven year old girl.
It was something she kept to herself for all those years in fear that no one would believe her and considered suicide frequently during this time. The abuse of her father shaped her childhood awfully and damaged her early teens but when a listener phoned into YFM threatening suicide after her stepfather raped her Ms Gaelesiwe decided to speak out about her own pain. That is when her healing process started.
There was a tremendous response to her telling her story on-air and listeners just continued to phone in. With hundreds of women and men turning to her for help she decided to create a safe and nurturing space for young people to openly disclose their experiences in a welcoming group environment and that was when ODF was born.
The first session was held in the Johannesburg City Hall in 2002 with 50 people attending. Six years later the centre, situated in the centre of the Johannesburg CBD, is visited daily by young survivors of sexual offences who are able to receive counseling and life skills for free. The centre is the mainstay of ODF and provides not only a safe haven but also a place of learning, with practical skills being imparted to those who come into contact with the program.
While founding ODF was an extension of her own pain Ms Gaelesiwe felt the need during the time she worked for YFM to inspire the radio station to focus on more than just being the biggest party station on air. That was the beginning of Y-cares, the radio stations social responsibility division.
In addition to her work at ODF and YFM Andile spearheaded the idea of providing sexual health information to youth all over Africa through television. The show Uncensored on MTVBASE which she presented in 2006 was very successfull.
Ms Gaelesiwe then moved on to her current show called Khumbul’ekhaya loosely translated as “remember home” where she helps South Africans around the world to remember how wonderful their country is and to come back home.
She is presently also working with three government entities on key projects visiting schools and community halls in areas particularly affected by violence. Under the banner of ODF, a group of professionals and celebrities and role models does these visits, listens to victims and points to people who will assist, provide counseling and motivate them to cope.
- A short profile on Ms Gaeliswe will be broadcast on SABC 2 after the Afrikaans and Sotho News on 24 July 2008.
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Mrs Gladys Doreen Thomas recipient of the Order of Ikhamanga (Bronze), is a national and internationally awarded poet, short-story writer, playwright and author of several children’s stories.
She received the Order of Ikhamanga in September 2007 from Pres Thabo Mbeki for her outstanding contribution to poetry and short stories which focused on the political injustices and human suffering of the apartheid era and for raising international consciousness about it. Ms Thomas was also awarded the South African Literary Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ms Thomas’ collection of work is an important record of the emotional and political history of our country and has brought her international acclaim. Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies both locally and internationally and has been translated into amongst others French, German, Turkish, Dutch, Italian, Chinese and Japanese.
She is also widely known in the Western Cape for reading her poetry at political rallies and has also read her poetry internationally in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, the USA and Switzerland
Ms Thomas’s literary career started in 1967 when she began penning her debut anthology, City Rage, co-authored with another anti-apartheid South African poet, James Matthews, It was eventually published in 1971 but soon after became the first book of poetry to be banned in South Africa.
Ms Thomas continued her writing undeterred and soon after the Soweto uprisings she submitted a play to the World Literary Competition and won first prize. This award increased her recognition and standing as a writer internationally and she was soon after included in the first American Kwanzaa Awards in recognition of her role in writing against apartheid.
Thereafter she was invited to various conferences across the globe where she related the effect of apartheid on the majority of South Africans. Most noteworthy of this time was her publication, Spotty Dog and other Township Children’s Stories, which was the first publication to explore the effects of apartheid on young children.
Over the years she insisted to reflect South Africa’s social conditions in her work and won amongst other the African Literary Award for her full-length play, Avalon Court.
Ms Thomas and her husband also began a theatre group, Getwize Players, for whom she wrote plays and their debut production, The Time is Now, toured the Cape Peninsula and featured at the Grahamstown Arts Festival, always to excellent reviews.
She also started a children’s theatre group in Ocean View and staged an anti—AIDS play, and others at various places on the Cape Flats and remains involved in various volunteer community efforts in Ocean View.
- A short profile on Mrs Thomas will be broadcast on SABC 2 after the Afrikaans and Sotho News on 26 July 2008.
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Ms Janet Buckland or simply known as Mama J to the communities in the Eastern Cape has been responsible for the initiation and creation of a significant number of very successful arts and culture projects in the province.
She combined her understanding of the value of the arts and particularly theatre in the lives of all South Africans with her skills as a performer, director, fund raiser and administrator to direct these projects over a number of years in the Eastern Cape.
The most notably project is UBOM! the Eastern Cape Drama Company, which was the first full time professional drama company in the province. It brings theatre presentations and drama workshops to literally thousands of people in schools and communities all over the Eastern Cape.
Ubom! is a dynamic blend of drama honours graduates and grass-roots community professionals working under the artistic directorship of Ms Buckland in an independently funded and autonomous project of Rhodes University.
Since its start almost six years ago Ubom! has reached audiences totaling more than 178 000. It also has provided 36 full time contracts for actors to work in the Eastern Cape. Ms Buckland is raising the funds to sustain it.
She also started the Amaphiko Township Dance Project which currently teaches well over 150 young girls and boys the joy and discipline of dance. Besides dancing the project also promotes a sense of self-worth and builds self-esteem within these young people.
In recent international dance exams the dancers earned themselves 25 distinctions – some of the best results in the country with one of the dancers receiving a full scholarship to Rhodes University and two additional bursaries as a result of both school and dance exam results.
Other than these two projects Ms Buckland is also involved in community projects, which are part of Ubom!, such as “Art of the Street” which is a workshop and performance programme working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds at the Eluxolweni Street Shelter in Grahamstown. It culminates in a therapeutic performance in which the children enact their stories in a theatrical and entertaining way on the official Street Theatre platform of the National Arts Festival.
When Ms Buckland first moved to the Eastern Cape in the early nineties she became Director of Arts Education Projects at the Grahamstown Foundation. There she ran amongst other ten High School Festivals of the Arts across six provinces every year. The North West, Western Cape, Mpumalanga Schools’ Festivals and an additional Gauteng Festival were all originally piloted by her Department.
She was also responsible for the growth and development of the Studio Project of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown which showcases Eastern Cape artists and has been nationally and internationally recognised for her community work, performances and directing.
- A short profile on Ms Buckland will be broadcast on SABC 2 after the Afrikaans and Sotho News on 29 July 2008.
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