I met 1in 9 in the collective space. It took me a year waiting for their call and when finally happened, I never slept that night. Since we met with 1in9 it has been a journey, we have learned a lot from them, from painting, doing banners with paint, more work needs to be done though.
We have done programs involving other organizations from Vaal that we have introduced to 1in9. I think its organizations. We have done covid-19 response work including a booklet.
Since I met 1in9 on terms of growth and learning am slowly seeing the positive results. We are also being developed through their political education program which made us understand feminism much better now.
We have done court support of Nomatjala Makhasana with the. A lesbian woman killed in the vaal and her body dumped. Through 1 in 9 we have been able to buy branded t-shirts which is something we never had in the organisation. The first T-shirt with our logo was through 1in9 that moment made me cry.
Our work is to support victims of gbvf, and families, demonstrations to raise awareness, installations of crimes scenes, exhibitions, dialogs to educate the community, film screening to trigger conversations amongst the public so we can come up with our own solutions.
We support victims or their families before court from day and after court, we keep them as friends of the organization so we can be able to see their healing and see kids growing. We can do more as we have planned if we had funds.
Meeting Nomthi for the first when Canada was presenting about the grant and the team they were warm people. I have grown much better, even if I did not get any grants when I tried to apply, I was never discouraged because 1in 9 have been assuring me that they too have been rejected but they never gave up.
Mpumi Mathabela contributed on my growth, she has been tough at some stage but later I knew that it is because she wanted me to be strong, learn to take decisions that sometimes will not be favorable to other people. I have learned gentleness from her. I have learned from Onica Makwakwa that reaching out to people whom you think are not in your level, like honesty I never thought of her being approachable but she reached out to the families that needed food and she never asked questions.
Fatima from Black womxn caucus when I did not understand big organizations giving you grant only for program nothing for salaries or stipend she said its ok to collaborate with big organizations even if you won’t get nothing that made me participate in Masibambisane programme from foundation for humans right.
Sarah Motha taught me that when work must be done it is important to keep communication even if its weekends and this I learned from both her and Mpumi that every time you get a chance to speak do not forget your supporting organization. The change has changed how I communicate and interact with my family.
I lost my son and mom during this work with 1in9. The one thing my sister kept saying is that I should continue to do the work and not stop because that would give her strength. I was able to keep it together. I continue to do the work in my mums honour.
Our relationship as family is more stronger because I am able to sit people down when things aren’t going well unlike before I would be depressed and keep things to myself. With people I work with, it’s still a problem sometimes I feel because I don’t pay them for their hard work I can’t tell them what to do, however gradually am practicing some of the things I have learned from 1in9.
Community understands gbvf now, they are able to start their own initiative like man who attended our exhibition a week later they started their own forum that teaches about gbvf and how to reach out, these man are academics and 2works for government.
Helped others to write their constitution and was able to assist Nhlanhla who has been housing lesbian womxn in her home for years if they were in need to realize that she could actually formilize her initiative since in the region we don’t have such organizations.
Other challenges were during covid-19 when organisation were giving us food parcels for beneficiaries we were excluded yet we had no income at all most organizations forgo that organizations like ours has volunteers who also in need that put more strain on us.
Not owning our own place as an office is a challenge. I have identified a house in Vanderbijlpark that we wish to buy and renovate and this will be in the center of Vaal people.