Learn as if you were to live forever
“Before I met One in Nine Campaign I couldn’t control my emotions, especially when I got angry. However I am grateful to have been a participant in the program because I have learnt how to keep my emotions in check.”
Nhlanhla is a lesbian womxn, proud of her sexuality and always stands her ground, she is not afraid of the stating what she wants. She is a hard worker and prepared to learn, even though she has her head held up high she knows she might not always be right and acknowledges her mistakes and always willing to learn from them through every opportunity she gets. Nhlanhla is a community builder and works towards building others.
“I am a straight forward person and a do not appreciate any sort of judgement, I am a qualified integration technician, installing and maintaining systems. I’m also the founder of Lebo Basadi foundation that offers shelter and support to lesbian women who have been disowned, and who come from abusive relationships”
She is a feminist and an LGBTIAQ+ activist, Nhlanhla met the One in Nine Campaign team through Norma of Tosunga Baninga and her first encounter was through the Campaign’s food security and farming project at Waterdal facilitated by Serapeng Sa Basadi, an organisation of black women farmers. She then became a participant in the feminist political education and that’s where she learned more about feminism.
Nhlanhla doesn’t believe in societal norms that puts a barrier between men and women, “being an integrated technician is always associated with being a male dominated profession however I always told myself that I can do it to the best of my ability”
“Since I started participating in the feminist political education I have noticed a huge change in my attitude and in the manner I handle issues, before I met One in Nine Campaign I couldn’t control my emotions, especially when I got angry. However I am grateful to have been a participant in the program because I have learnt how to keep my emotions in check, I had a lot of control issues but after the workshop about different types of power I learnt not to allow my position to get to my head.”“With these changes I also noticed that I can deal with issues around the household with my spouse and communication is so much better now, as well as with colleagues and members of the foundation. I may be the founder but I treat every member as an equal to me therefore respect is mutual.”
Nhlanhla also advocates against LGBTIAQ+ hate crimes, she supports the survivors and shows solidarity at their court cases. “Thanks to the art for liberation workshop I have learnt how to bring messages to life through any form of art and the anti-hate crimes campaign workshop helped me to be able to campaign for the different cases and we are able to get the community involved and teach them about hate crimes and how it affects us as humans.”
The great work that Nhlanhla and the foundation does in support of the LBQ women has helped a number of lesbians to find a safe space from abusive relationships and constantly attending hate crimes court cases and it gives hope to the survivors. Nhlanhla always includes One in Nine in the progress of these cases and she always invites the team to support the hate crime marches so she can give back to the community by allowing the team to share the knowledge with others.
Nhlanhla’s future plans are to groom women and offer them different skills. “I’ve noticed that most women depend on men so it would be best if women would have different skills so that we can have more independent women and break gender roles because I believe men and women can do most things without barriers.”