With their colorful costumes and tall stature, the Maasai people of the Great Rift Valley region of East Africa are perhaps the most photographed tribe in the world. Their fierce adherence to an ancient way of life is glorified in coffee table books and travel magazines the world over. The Maasai people of East Africa live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania along the Great Rift Valley on semi-arid and arid lands. The Maasai occupy a total land area of 160,000 square kilometers with a population of approximately 1.2 million people.
I visited the Maasai people of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in 2014. Whilst they live within the confines of the roles they play as glamorous tribals for visiting tourists, they are reportedly constantly battling government initiatives that erode their way of life and meager livelihoods.
Indigenous people such as the Maasai worldwide are between 300-500 million, embody and nurture 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity, and occupy 20% of the world’s land surface. Some indigenous people strive to preserve traditional ways of life, and at the same time seek greater participation in current state structures.
But all is reportedly not well for these pastoral farmers since the land they grace has been under threat by mining and wildlife concessions for nearly 50 years. Local indigenous councils have been battling with authorities during this entire period: it seems like both their luck and existence are running out.
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An additional problem for the Maasai apparently is the discovery of vast quantities of helium in the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. The BBC News in June 2016 reported this find as a “game-changer”, especially as previously-known world supplies are running out.
A group of researchers from Oxford and Durham universities in the United Kingdom, working with the Norwegian helium exploration company Helium One, have discovered what they believe is a vast supply of the element in an unlikely place.
“Their research shows that volcanic activity provides the intense heat necessary to release the gas from ancient, helium-bearing rocks,” according to a statement from the University of Oxford.
“Within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley, volcanoes have released helium from ancient deep rocks and have trapped this helium in shallower gas fields.”
Robert Richardson, Professor of Physics from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel Prize for his work on “super fluidity of helium”, and has issued a warning that supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.
Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatization Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo Texas storage facility holds around half the earth’s stocks of helium – around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80% of the world’s helium supplies.
Richardson said it has taken 4.7 billion years for Earth to accumulate the helium reserves; we will have exhausted them within about a hundred years of the US’s National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925.
Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecraft, telescopes, nuclear research and radiation monitors. Until now, the precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling. Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley.
Prof Chris Ballentine of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
The discovery was reported in the US journal Popular Science.
“To put this discovery into perspective,” Prof Ballentine continued, “global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 billion cubic feet.”
The Tanzania find could reportedly thus be sufficient to meet global demand for nearly seven years, and may be more than twice as large as the US helium reserve.
This latest find, estimated at 54 billion cubic feet of helium ($3.8 billion), is a major shot in the arm to global helium reserves which have been running dangerously low, with prices rising by 500% in the last 15 years, according to Global Risk Insights (GRI), which provides expert political risk news and analysis on events affecting business, investment, and economic climates worldwide.
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While this scientific find has excited scientists the world over, the other side of the equation is the possible land-use stress to the Maasai people under whose land this discovery has been made. But the Maasai are no strangers to land grabs since the time they moved into the Rift Valley from South Sudan during the 15th century.
During the 16th century, their presence ranged from Lake Victoria to the Indian Ocean and from the highlands near Nairobi to the Serengeti plains in Tanzania. There they peacefully co-existed with other tribes and often times came to the aid of their neighbors during Arab slave raids. The British, who arrived in the late 18th century, saw the Maasai as a nuisance and negotiated a 1904 treaty to move the Maasai to a piece of land in the Rift Valley.
In the 1950s, in a deal that was very similar to the previous dealings, the British successfully convinced the Maasai to move out of the Serengeti land to the Ngorongoro highlands where fellow Maasai already lived in order to create a better wildlife corridor. The Maasai lost the best dry-season rangeland in their area to the benefit of all the wildlife among which they had lived for so many years.
Realistically, the major priorities of the governments of Kenya and Tanzania are economic growth, and both have relied on tourism and other projects to obtain this.
“Modern society demands resources to maintain a standard of living commensurate with people’s expectations, and a suitable level of environmental quality is inherent to this standard. Trade-offs are inevitably made between the activities that provide energy, minerals, timber, and food and the need and desire to preserve ecosystem services. Such trade-offs are often highly controversial and politically volatile,” writes Lee Gerhard of Kansas Geological Survey, in a conference presentation entitled Meeting Societal Resource and Environmental Requirements into the Twenty-First Century.
The author, a chemical engineer by training, has investigated and determined that there is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and that current supplies originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. Commercial helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas processing. Most natural gas deposits also contain smaller quantities of nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, helium, and other non-combustible materials that must be removed via “upgrading” to produce natural gas with an acceptable level of heat energy.
Once the helium has been separated from the natural gas, it undergoes further refining to bring it to 99.99+% purity for commercial use. The question remains if the helium found in Tanzania would require large operations for upgrading it.
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This author also believes that the environmental impact of recovering the helium gas can be reduced by newer drilling technologies such as lateral drilling and gas fracking without disturbing the land above. In my opinion, the Tanzanian government needs to actively seek the cooperation of the Maasai society while trying to create a formula for sharing royalties.
These profits I believe should be invested into the Maasai society through a structured program to prepare them for modern society through vocational education and other cottage industry enterprises. An international NGO should be used as a vehicle for this equitable transfer. I envisage that in doing so all aspects of the helium issue can be attacked: global scientific progress, GDP growth, and most importantly, allowing the Maasai to earn royalties while holding on to their culture, which is a heritage that belongs to all of us globally.
During my planned travels through Maasai lands and the Rift Valley areas in the near future, instead of capturing images of their enactments of various ceremonies popularized by travel magazines, I am planning on spending time inquiring about their progress with the government agencies regarding the helium issue. Watch this space for more.

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What You  Don’t See  In Travel Brochures

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The Rainbow Nation’s  Whites-Only Town

African jazz legend Thandi Klaasen saw and sang through it all; many years of hunger, oppression and an acid bomb thrown into her face.
When she surrendered to life, her memorial drew the finest of the last 50 years – many of whom listened to her rich voice as children.
On a chilly afternoon in Johannesburg, a hall of mourners – musicians, politicians, family and supporters of Klaasen – gathered at the Germiston City Hall, to tell her stories. Strangely, there was not even a single tear. It was a hall filled with clapping and laughter.
There were rows of chairs, in the middle front seated the family wearing white t-shirts with Klaasen’s face printed on them. Baroque floral arrangements flanked the stage, and scores of reporters filled the hallway.
Klaasen died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, at the age of 86 after being admitted to Thelle Mogoerane Hospital in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg, on December 9, 2016.
To the world, she was known as a music giant with a golden voice, a sense of humor and Tsotsi Taal, a township slang, the language of Sophiatown, where she was born. To her children, she was a mom who loved sharing her stories.
Her daughter Lorraine, also a musician, took to the podium sporting a hat and black and white brogues. The clothes were her mom’s favorite.
She started her five-minute eulogy by greeting the audience: “Sanibonani, dumelang, hoe gaan dit, hoezit?”, a way that Klaasen greeted people.
“My chest is so tight and it’s like somebody put a rope around my throat,” said Lorraine.
“Music made my mom very happy. It was not about how she sang the songs but how the audience reacted.”
Lorraine likened her mom to a rose that looks pretty, but if not watered, wilts and dies.
“Every time my mom visited me in Canada, I took her to schools, senior citizens’ homes and HIV/AIDS foundations; every place where my mom could speak and inspire people I took my mom and so she became alive. But when we came back home, I noticed she was withering away musically.”
It was the end of a story that began in 1931 when the world was in the throes of depression.
Born to a shoemaker father and a domestic worker mother, Klaasen started her career as a teenager, singing in churches for a handful of coins. She decided to become a singer after seeing a jazz group perform at her school.
Not many knew she was also a tap dancer.
Klaasen knew poverty, apartheid and hardship and poured it into her work.
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“I had no chance to say goodbye to romance
I had no time to leave it all behind
It was the place I knew
Where my dreams came true
Until they broke it down
Sophiatown”
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These are the lyrics from her popular song, Sophiatown, narrating a sad tale of how black people were removed from the cosmopolitan suburb of Johannesburg.
In 1977, the star was attacked with an acid bomb that disfigured her face and put her in hospital for a year. It is said that a rival hired thugs to assault the singer; to this day, no one knows who it was.
Klaasen used to say: “They have burned the face but not the voice.”
Sadly, the great voice is no more.
She was also well-known for her role in the international musical, King Kong, by composer Todd Matshikiza singing alongside great voices, such as Dorothy Masuka, Dolly Rathebe and Miriam Makeba.
Fellow musician Don Mattera, leaning on a stick, described Klaasen as a queen who never needed protection.
With a career that spanned over five decades, she has received a string of awards, including: The Woman of Distinction Award, in Canada in 1999, and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the South African Music Awards.
Many said they’ll remember Klaasen for her humor, feisty personality and conviviality.
“She had the special gift of making wine disappear in seconds,” said Nandi Ndlovu, a granddaughter, as the hall erupted in laughter.
Legendary musician Abigail Kubeka said Klaasen was a lady of style.
“I remember when she was still married to her husband, Lucas; she once told me that ‘hey Abi, I once cooked because Lucas had asked for a mutton curry’, and as you know she used to love her wine, so she cooked this mutton and it happened that a dish cloth fell into the pot and she wasn’t aware. So she dished up for the husband, so as he was eating with a fork, he noticed a dish cloth. He then asked ‘Thandi, what have you cooked?’.”
Her response was “Ag man, Lucas jy het gese jy soek mutton curry (no man, Lucas you said you wanted mutton curry)”, and then Lucas said “ja mutton curry maar die is ‘n dish cloth curry die (yes, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth curry)”.
“Rest in peace, Thandi, and don’t cook mutton cloth or dish curry again,” Kubeka said, before getting back to her seat next to Masuka.
Kubeka described Klaasen as a courageous woman who stood up in the face of the apartheid regime.
“She was so brave you took her to London and she was Thandiwe all the way you like or not. She was never apologetic about who she was,” she said.
Zanele Dlamini, 38, who played a young Klaasen at the Market Theatre, a tribute to jazz legends, performed Sophiatown.
“When I first heard that she passed away I was hurt a lot. Playing mama Klaasen wasn’t easy but she helped me a lot even though she wasn’t fine health-wise. I last saw her in August, but before her death, I used to communicate with Lorraine, who told me she wasn’t talking anymore. I wanted her to see herself in me. Even though she was sick I wasn’t ready for her death,” said Dlamini.
“She lived her life; a life of tragedy and finally she’s in peace,” said Lorraine.
To these musicians, she lives on; her song will never die.

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Farewell To Romance

If girls were meant to fly, God would have painted the skies pink.”
These were the first words Chipo Matimba heard from a male colleague when she reached for the skies 22 years ago.
How the first female Airforce of Zimbabwe pilot soared 30,000 feet above her humble home in Harare’s Belvedere suburbs is one of the great stories of Africa.
“I saw an advert in a local newspaper advertising for cadet programs for the air force in Zimbabwe, when I realized there were no gender restrictions, I decided to apply. My mind was clear growing up that I wanted to do something that required science and having done science subjects at high school helped me enrol as a cadet pilot,” says Matimba.
Matimba was born a few years after Ian Smith, former Rhodesian prime minister, signed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 – a move that thrust many black Rhodesians into the dark.
“There are some professions that were out of reach for black Zimbabweans, let alone women. The promises of independence meant we could all pursue our dreams,” she says.
“My father died when I was 10, this left the burden of raising nine children to my mother who was a dressmaker. Other than looking after her children, she had the extended family to care for also.”
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The fact that Matimba, the sixth of nine children, opted for the military was a mystery to her family.
“After that advert, I went to join the military at the air force department in Gweru. Of the hundreds who applied, I was one of 10 selected for the program; three females and seven males. It was not an easy exercise, both for the training itself, and pressure from family that said I would not make it in the military.
“My grandmother was adamant that I was not supposed to be in this profession but after some persuasion my mother agreed that I give it a try. [At the end of] the training, the two other females had fallen by the wayside but all the males completed.”
Matimba knew she had made the right choice.
“It costs about $50,000 to go through training lessons with 200 flying hours to fly commercial. Without air force training, I would not have flown any single day as mother would not have even managed to raise money for one lesson,” she says.
In 1996, two years after she joined the military, she received her flying credits and got a few scares along the way.
“In 2005, I was flying with a trainee cadet and our one-engine plane had an engine failure so we had to crashland just outside Gweru. We were lucky that there were no trees, but only anthills; our small aircraft was damaged but our lives were not.”
These days, Matimba, 43, is a captain with full honors and flies an Airbus A320 across the region and on each trip, is entrusted with 160 lives.
For Matimba, success has not robbed her of her culture. She has one desire late in life – to start a family.
“The moment you are three months pregnant, you have to take time off flying and focus on your pregnancy. This is done for health reasons both for the mother and child. Unlike male counterparts, women pilots and even flight attendants have to deal with challenges posed by nature,” she says.
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She laughs that if she decided to stay single, her family would take her to charismatic preachers, who see celibacy as a demonic possession to be delivered from.
In the air, she is the boss.
“In most cases when passengers are told that they are flown by a female captain, they come to shake my hand and introduce their daughters to me. More than a pilot, I now see myself as an inspiration to most females and young males. I want them to look at me and say, ‘if she did it, why can I not do it’.”
She makes one last quip as we end our conversation, full of laughter and reflection.
“Every time I am flying, like what my former colleague once warned, I will be painting the sky pink.”

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In The Air, She Is Boss

The issue of gender inclusion once again featured in this year’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town in February. And there were no surprises – mining is still very much a man’s world, particularly at the senior executive management level.
“Women in high mining positions tend to refer to the sector as an old boys’ club. Whilst the numbers of men and women who enter the sector at graduate level are more or less the same, there are few females in senior leadership roles,” says Claire McMaster of Women in Mining South Africa (WiMSA), referring to her own country.
Whilst South African companies manage to attract women at the entry level, they seem to fail to keep them and see them through to the higher echelons of management structures.
“According to our research, 50% of women who are working in the South African mining sector are between 26 and 35 years old. However, by the time they are 55, this percentage is down to 3%.”
South Africa however is not the world’s worst performer in terms of gender representation in the extractive industry, on the contrary. Mining For Talent, a 2015 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), shows 19.8% of all executive management positions of the top 100 mining companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) are held by women. This is considerably higher than economies such as Australia (7.5%), the United States (12.1%), and United Kingdom (4.6%).
In addition, South Africa’s ratio of female board members of the JSE’s top 100 mining companies stands at 16.8%. Africa’s second largest economy hereby outperforms Australia (14%), the UK (15.3%), and the US (11%).
The situation is however not ideal, says McMaster. The main reasons South African women decide to leave the mining sector include a rigid glass ceiling that prevents them from moving up and paternalistic views on how women should behave in the work environment.
“For a young woman who is working in the sector, assertiveness is often viewed as aggressiveness by male superiors,” she says, adding that this deters women from staying.
Thuthula Balfour-Kaipa, who heads the South African Chamber of Mines’ health division, agrees. The patriarchal nature of South Africa’s extractive sector also discourages women from asking for raises, better opportunities and promotions.
“Psychologically, we are not used to ask for a better deal because it is seen as demanding. Men, however, do tend to ask for better opportunities. Millennials are changing this around. They are confident enough to ask for what they want.”
What doesn’t help is the fact that men are still often seen as more important employees than women, says Balfour-Kaipa.
“At the work place, men are seen as the main breadwinners, whilst women tend to be seen as supplementary,” she says. “When it comes to retrenchments, male workers tend to be viewed as people who have a family to provide for, whilst when it comes to women, people assume they have a man looking after them.”
A lack of successful role models, mentors, and guidance is another reason women leave mining prematurely, says McMaster. According to a 2014 WiMSA study, 62% of respondents complained about poor access to relevant role models and mentors, whilst 54% agreed on a lack of career and development guidance relevant to them.
“That is why we at WiMSA are running a project which has identified 13 senior mining women as patrons,” McMasters says. “Women in our very male-dominated industry need role models like Deshnee Naidoo, CEO of Vedanta Zinc International. They need to know they can achieve that too.”
So why should mining companies work to retain its women employees, and groom them to become senior executives? According to McMaster, the answer is simple.
“Various research reports have shown having a critical mass of women on your board and in your senior leadership team positively impacts on your financial metrics, decision-making, transparency, and corporate governance,” she says.
Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita, Chair of the JSE and former CEO of steel and mining firm ArcelorMittal South Africa, concurs. Making space for women makes business sense.
“It does not make sense to draw skills and expertise from just one half the population, particularly if you want to create a competitive advantage now that mining is struggling due to commodity volatility,” she says.
“If you focus on just men, how do you know you will get the right skills for your company? In my view, you are creating more risks if you are not embracing this particular topic, and not including women.”

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A Glass Ceiling Even A Pickaxe Can’t Break

It must be one of the smallest airports in the world. It’s about 100 square meters with one entry and one exit. This is the gateway to Walvis Bay, Namibia, a place where the desert meets the ocean.
Its noon, the city is as quiet as the grave. It is the beginning of the year and most executives in the fishing industry are on holiday, far from their workers who risk their lives for a catch. The Walvis Bay dock tells the story of two fishermen and with it, the economy.
On this day, one fisherman is angry and feels cheated. Immanuel Petros, a charismatic union man in his forties, is leading chanting workers with clenched fists. They want more money and better working conditions.
“If you see a shack in Walvis Bay, you know it belongs to a fisherman. Workers doing the hard work earn less than $100 a month, while working for more than 16 hours a day. The city lives and breathes poverty,” says Petros.
The country’s failure to create jobs for the poor was also confirmed in a World Bank report in 2015.
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“Namibia’s economic growth, prudent macroeconomic policies, and generous social programs have not generated the jobs needed to overcome the inequitable distributions of income and assets or raise living standards in rural areas and among the urban poor,” says the report.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Namibia decreased to 28.10% in 2014 from 29.60% in 2013. Although the economy shows some signs of improvement, Petros and many others feel it’s not enough.
On the other side of the dock, fishing has thrown up an entrepreneur. The Namibian economy gave Rojo van Wyk the chance to catch a better future.
Van Wyk is the director of Mack Fishing. Ten years ago, he was selling a handful of fish but now sells more than 40 truckloads per month.
“Getting into the fishing business was my big chance, 10 years ago I was doing nothing and literally down and out and along the way I got this opportunity and now I own a fishing quarter.”
By owning a fishing quarter, Van Wyk can allocate fishing rights to beginners who pay him a small amount to fish their way out of poverty. For him, more fish is more money on his balance sheet.
According to the World Bank, political stability and sound economic management have helped anchor economic growth and poverty reduction in Namibia, leading to opportunities like the one taken by Van Wyk.
“Low interest rates, fiscal stimulus, and unusually high foreign direct investment (FDI) in mining have resulted in a construction boom, fast household consumption growth, and solid growth in tradable services,” says the bank.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) believes the country can do more in addressing the challenges faced by many of Petros’ peers.
“Namibia must deepen reforms to get better value from agriculture and extend nonmineral diversification to create jobs and reinforce spatial inclusion,” says one of the AfDB’s Economic Outlook reports.
Hanns Spangenberg, an analyst at NKC Independent Economists, says Namibia continues to be rated at an investment grade BBB- with a stable outlook.
“While the country’s fiscal and current account balances have deteriorated in recent years, and this report reflects weaker than before projections over the medium term, there is no reason to panic. The government is able to cover its borrowing needs on the domestic and international capital market while the current account deficit has increased external debt to a similar level recorded by Namibia’s ‘BB+’ and ‘BBB-’ peers,” he says.
“Namibia’s positive long-term prospects for mining exports are one of our key sovereign debt rating strengths. However, the sector has struggled during the last year due to lacklustre external demand for the country’s extractive exports. A decrease in diamond extraction led directly to the sector’s weak growth last year, while uranium output continued to record a contraction.”
He also added that, on a nominal basis, Namibia’s GDP is estimated to have contracted from around $14.6 billion in 2014 to around $13.2 billion in 2015 due to the depreciation of the South African rand (and subsequently the Namibian dollar).
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“On real terms, however, economic expansion is estimated at 4.9 percent in 2015, and is projected to accelerate slightly to 5 percent this year. Factors driving real GDP growth include strong wholesale and retail numbers, government activity, and a healthy financial services sector.”
Gary van Staden, a political expert, says there has been renewed impetus to tackle issues surrounding poverty and unemployment.
“The newly elected administration included some new people with vast experience in this field that are sure to make a meaningful impact over the long term,” says Van Staden.
He also added that political stability was crucial to Namibia’s future prospects.
“While one-party systems tend to be relatively unstable, given enough time, there is no indication of that in Namibia at the moment. On the contrary, the stability of the political environment has been a key factor in attracting foreign investment. While this may change over the extreme long term (i.e. in the next 10 to 20 years), this is not considered to be an issue currently.”

“IF you see a shack in walvis bay you know it belongs  to a fisherman”

It was the dangerous days leading up to South Africa’s first democratic elections on April 27, 1994. Jodi Bieber, a newspaper rookie photographer, was sent on assignment to cut her teeth in a violent Ulundi, in KwaZulu-Natal, a warzone for the African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party.
“I definitely knew I was not the war photographer because we witnessed quite a few violent situations in Ulundi. At one time we slept on the floor of our hotel, we thought we might be assassinated,” says Bieber, then freelance photographer at The Star, in Johannesburg.
In KwaZulu-Natal, Bieber suffered rough times documenting the tragic tale of the dead and wounded on the painful path to democracy.
“When I was not freelancing for the newspaper, I created bodies of work about different subjects; one of my first projects was the crime prevention unit in Hillbrow. I spent six months with police who worked undercover,” she says.
Right from the early days, Bieber and her camera tempted fate. She survived to win the prestigious World Press Photo of the year in 2010, for the photograph of a violated young woman in a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The picture spoke a thousand horrifying words. It captured the 18-year-old Bibi Aisha who was dragged by her angry in-laws to a mountain where her Taliban soldier husband cut off her nose and ears. She was left for dead as punishment for running from her marriage to escape years of abuse. Aisha survived and ended up in the refugee camp where Bieber found her in 2010.
“It took the photograph in a very plain room. When I created the picture I asked Bibi through an interpreter to close her eyes and think about her inner beauty and her inner power and look at me. She did that and I took the photo. That’s the photograph they used. But I was very worried because I took her very empowered photograph. I thought I had failed because TIME would want something more vulnerable. TIME said it was the most iconic photograph they had seen. And it went on to win the award. For one year I traveled to about 20 countries and I gave talks to universities. I was in front of the cameras for the first time,” says Bieber.
Bieber’s photograph changed Aisha’s life. In August 2010, TIME magazine ran it on the cover. A family in the United States read the story and adopted Aisha and the Grossman Burn Foundation is paying for a reconstructive surgery on her nose.
“When I choose projects, it’s because I identify with the subject. Because I identify, I relate to it, that’s really why I want to do it. Hopefully through what I do I am also learning something from it. Yes, the aesthetic for me is as important as the content, definitely. I like to touch on the subjects that have some relevance to me,” says Bieber.
When FORBES AFRICA met Bieber in late November, she was going on a two-week assignment to Papua New Guinea to photograph women and children scarred by violence. Doctors Without Borders commissioned this project. A week earlier, South African National Gallery had closed an exhibition of her work called Between Darkness and Light; what she calls a mid-career retrospective. It ran for three months.
Bieber says she creates relationships within the communities, because there’s always an element of danger.
“For me, people are people even if they are criminals, if they know you they won’t touch you, they won’t try to hurt you. I went to Iraq but I never felt fearful but you always know that something might happen. But when I was attacked, I was photographing outside a restaurant in Cape Town. So you never know when you could be attacked. Life is not as predictable. That’s why my book is called Between Dogs and Wolves, a title from French phrase entre les chiens et loups,” says Bieber.
Work is a world away from where Bieber was born in 1966, in Hillbrow, central Johannesburg. She grew up in segregated South Africa and went to all-white schools. The system fostered rebellion in her soul.
“I don’t think art was embraced when I was growing up but I used to question things. I had a history teacher I am friends with now. He opened our eyes to what was happening in South Africa at the time. Remember in 1976 was when we first got television. It was a completely different time, but I remember seeing those yellow nyalas [a military vehicle], I knew something was not right in our society. So, I was very rebellious at high school. I had an opinion and I had a voice, I was not just following the crowd,” she says.
In 1993, aged 23, Bieber took a part-time course at Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg – the training ground for many successful African photographers – while she worked as a media planner for an advertising agency in Sandton, north of Johannesburg. After the course, Bieber left her job for a three-month trainee post at The Star. In 1996, she was one of 12 young world photographers selected for a week’s training in a World Press Masterclass in Rotterdam, Holland. This led to myriad awards at home and internationally.
Bieber’s expeditions are recorded in books: Real Beauty; which challenges stereotypes of beauty in South Africa, Soweto; about ordinary life in South Africa’s biggest township and Between Dogs And Wolves: Growing Up With South Africa, which documents the country for over a decade.
“All my work deals with issues relating to broader society and lots of it challenges the stereotypes that exist in the media,” says Bieber.
For two decades, Bieber’s work changed lives around the world and she vows to document the injustices. Her camera and her soul agree.

Jodi-main

The Restless Rebellious Soul Behind The Lens

Among several other roles, self-made South African businesswoman Florence Musengi is founder of WAYAM Communications Consulting and the owner of an apparel company, WAYAM Clothing, specializing in African garments. She recently released her book, Woman At The Top, and shares her survival tips:
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Every woman has a dream but few pursue them, why so?
Procrastination and lack of vision seem a part of why some women do not pursue their dreams. Some women fear failure. Unless you start, you won’t know the greatness in you.
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Do you think women approach entrepreneurship differently from men?
Generally women tend to follow the same trajectory in corporate success that men have carved over the years. This is partially because of the patriarchal nature of traditional boardrooms. I however argue that women do not have to follow the same trajectory. The strength of women in business is in their uniqueness that is intrinsically different from men. Women need to leverage their innate qualities and capabilities to propel themselves upward in business in the same way they do when it comes to other spheres of their lives, such as social cohesion, parenting etc.
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Does being at the top define success?
No, I believe being at the top is another layer to achieving your goals.
Success is not generic. It is subjective and relative to an individual’s ambitions and capabilities. Success to one person is not necessarily success to another. If being at the top is the milestone that an individual has set for themselves to determine attainment of significant objectives, then it can be regarded as success. Success is not a summit that you reach and then from there any movement is downhill. It is rather a phase in the process of self-improvement in various aspects of one’s life. The intention is to stay within the phase (which is not static but dynamic) through continuous input of effort.
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It’s cold and lonely at the top, what are your survival tips for aspirants?
The climate at the top is a function of how you get there. If you have reached the top through collaborative efforts with colleagues and other stakeholders, then it shouldn’t be that cold. However, if the process you utilized to get there included ‘tramping’ on others, and achieving at the expense or detriment of colleagues, friends and family, then you are likely to get cold. The idea is to take as many people as possible to the top with you. Provided they have the right attitude and determination to get there.
A friend once said to me that “even pilots in the air need people on the ground for safe landing”. To get to the top one needs to listen, learn, aspire and inspire others.
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Your top three investment tips?
Avoid investing in anything whose formula for prosperity you do not understand. There is no such thing as accidental success, there should be clear inputs and conversion processes that lead to the output of success. If you do not understand this, then you wouldn’t really know how you achieved the returns on investment, except that you closed your eyes and picked a name.
Do not stand on one leg. Diversify to spread your risk and increase portfolio versatility. Industry sectors react differently to a particular economic climate, and hence a diversified portfolio stands a better chance of survival in trying economic times than a ‘one-legged pot’.
Understand that at some point you may have to invest in a profitable business idea that is not necessarily your first love, in order to generate enough returns at an adequately rapid rate to pursue your passion. Entrepreneurs have to be both passionate and discerning. The road to success requires sacrifices, compromises and trade-offs.
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The greatest advice you’ve received?
When you fall, fall forward and keep on crawling. Your future is in your hands and your destiny in God’s hands.
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Florence-etch

‘When You Fall, Fall Forward And Keep Crawling’

On a balmy Johannesburg morning, we meet South African photographer and activist Zanele Muholi at the Stevenson Studios in Braamfontein, a colorful cultural hub north of the city. Here, we are surrounded by her collection of self-portraits. Everywhere you look is Muholi, each image stark in mood and meaning.
You turn to the real Muholi – the award-winning photographer known for her work exploring gender, race and sexuality – in flesh and blood, lost in thought, just like her portraits.
Incidentally, blood has been a prevailing topic in some of Muholi’s works.
For her collection, Visual Sexuality: Only Half the Picture, she photographed herself in front of the mirror, portraying her first experience of puberty, trying to figure out what it meant to be a woman. Understandably, it was a difficult shoot.
“It was perceived as taboo to talk about periods, whereas people could easily speak about rape and other issues affecting women,” says Muholi.
“Before I am anything in the world, I am a woman.”
The last of five children, Muholi, 43, was only a few months old when her father died. Born and schooled in Durban in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, those initial years were difficult.
Muholi earned her first salary at a factory producing linen in KwaZulu-Natal. Destiny tempted her in the form of a camera. She left the factory job hoping to bus it to the city of Johannesburg to study film and videography at the Film and Allied Workers Organization.
<div id="attachment_31550" style="width: 899px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31550" class="wp-image-31550 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1-889x1024.jpg" alt="" width="889" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1.jpg 889w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1-300x346.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1-600x691.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1-260x300.jpg 260w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-Ngonyama-II-Oslo-2015-1-768x885.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 889px) 100vw, 889px" />Somnyama-Ngonyama-II</div>
Unfortunately, her interview was unsuccessful and she wasn’t admitted to the program.
She ended up braiding hair at her tiny flat in Century Plaza, Johannesburg, to make ends meet. She realized she was quite creative at it.
But braid after braid, she was getting closer to her dream.
In 2003, she completed an Advanced Photography course at the famed Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, only three kilometers from the Stevenson Studios, where she now displays her self-portraits. In Newtown, she held a camera for the first time.
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“I have always wanted to tell human stories like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex [stories]. I noticed there was a lack of visual material that spoke to our needs and I wanted to capture that,” says Muholi.
In 2009, she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in documentary media at Ryerson University in Toronto.
One of her portraits, Hlengiwe (pictured below) is a tell-all on hate crime and discrimination.
“It refers to the number of cases that I have heard, especially from hate crime victims and survivors who didn’t have the courage to report it to the police because they were going to lose it [the case] anyway. As much as it’s a beautiful image, it’s one of those painful and exhausting stories,” says Muholi.
Passionate about “visual history” and women, Muholi says photography is her life. And she has always wondered why there were few female photographers – especially in history.
“There were so many historic moments and stories around us, but I didn’t see any woman capturing those` moments… I asked myself why women are not drawn to this career. If we could have female bus drivers, why would it be difficult for women to carry cameras? I mean a camera is not too heavy,” says Muholi.
In 2012, she faced a serious setback in her career when intruders broke into her flat in Cape Town and made off with her hard drives containing five years of unpublished photographic work. She believes it was sabotage.
<div id="attachment_31549" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31549" class="wp-image-31549 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Somnyama-I-Paris-2014-1-768x1152.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Somnyama-I-Paris-2</div>
“Those people knew what they were doing, they’re were trying to slow me down,” she says.
Calling herself the first black lesbian to tell her life stories through a series of black and white self- portraits, the highlight of her career she says was displaying these portraits at a solo exhibition in Brooklyn, New York, in 2015.
“I felt I had arrived, I couldn’t slow down and that only death would stop me from doing what I love,” she says.
“One thing that people don’t know about me, I cry a lot and get really frustrated when I cannot be creative. So, I guess photography makes me happy.”
Currently busy with a new collection of photographs, Somnyama Ngonyama, meaning ‘hail, the dark lioness’, she has four published books and hopes to have at least 10 publications under her belt by 2020. And she wants to leave a legacy, like some of South Africa’s icons.
“I want to leave a mark just like the legendary Brenda Fassie and Miriam Makeba did with their music,” she says.
Life taught her resilience. Photography taught her about connecting. With the world. And herself.

Ndivile-II-Malmo-2014-9924-1

‘Only Death Would  Stop Me’

It was the saddest moment of my entire existence, not even my mother’s death was as sad as getting Sarah Baartman home,” says Chief Jean Burgess of the Ghonaqua First Peoples, one of the tribes of the Khoikhoi community in South Africa.
Sadness haunted Baartman until the end of a life of misery and exploitation. She was paraded and abused before rich Europeans and went to an early grave.
It took more than a century for her remains to be brought and buried into the red soil of Africa, the land of her birth.
Baartman was born in 1789, at the Gamtoos River Valley, in the Eastern Province of South Africa, into the Ghonaqua sub clan, part of the Khoikhoi.
When she was two, her mother died and her father, a cattle driver, died when she was a teenager.
Death followed her young life.
At 16, Baartman’s fiancé was murdered by Dutch colonists. Soon after, she was sold into slavery to a trader, Pieter Willem Cezar, who took her to Cape Town, where she became a domestic servant to his brother, Hendrik. It was during this time that she was given the name ‘Saartjie’, a Dutch diminutive for Sarah, according to South African History Online.
It was here she met William Dunlop, a British ship doctor, who persuaded her to travel to London with him. She signed a contract but couldn’t have known how her large buttocks would be ruthlessly exploited to make a fortune for Dunlop.
She was called by the stage name Hottentot Venus, which means Khoisan sex symbol. She was displayed as a freak, used as a scientific curiosity and kidnapped in a cage that was the life and struggle of the icon.
Five years in a foreign land, after enduring humiliation and exploitation and before her death, Baartman underwent scientific experiments by French scientist Georges Cuvier who wanted to prove she was the link between human and animal. He concluded she was not human yet.
In 1815, at only 25, she died of an unknown illness, thousands of kilometers from home, with no means of getting back.
“Nobody knows the exact date she died because she was surrounded by people who didn’t care about her. Their aim was only to exploit her,” says Burgess.
In life, and in death, she was treated as an exhibit. Her remains were displayed for 159 years after she passed on.
“After her death, a plaster cast was made of her body. Sarah’s brain and genitals were placed in jars which were displayed at the Musée del’Homme, which means Museum of Man, in Paris, until 1974,” says South African History Online.
Sadly, Burgess had to place her remains in a coffin.
“To us, she is a woman who suffered immensely,” says Burgess.
She wore an apron and was mostly half-naked. When asked about Baartman’s clothing, Burgess refuses to discuss it. She says discussing her clothing and body is an insult to her spiritual strength as an Indigenous First Descendent.
Two hundred years later, Baartman is still being talked about, following reports that American singer and Drunk In love hit maker, Beyoncé Knowles, was producing a film on her life, even though this is unlikely to happen.
Jack Devnarain, Chairman of the South African Guild of Actors, says as a producer Beyoncé has the right not only to tell the story, but also to include herself in whatever capacity she sees fit in a production.
But Devnarain says the story of Baartman is a painful episode in South African history and should be about more than creating a showpiece for the skills of an actress intent on earning accolades.
“We believe that any attempt at capturing the character, her treatment as carnival showpiece and as an object of perverse fascination is an endeavor that demands thorough research and a sensitive, respectful approach to the issues and the person,” says Devnarain.
Julie Wells, Head of the Isikhumbuzo Applied History Unit at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, says a film about Saartjie should be done thoughtfully and sensitively.
“There is a general uneasiness about Beyoncé playing Saartjie’s life. She strikes me as an unlikely person to do justice to the character…there should be an inclusion of local actors in the film,’’ says Wells.
Wells is wary of Americans who wants to play South African icons.
Burgess believes if an American artiste played the role of Baartman, the story would lose its spiritual sensitivity.
“No one has the right to portray Sarah’s life&#8230; I would never support another person from another country who wants to tell our stories. It is not theirs to tell. We have local actors who have the understanding, insight and sensitivity to do justice to the role,” says Burgess.
In March 2002, her remains were finally returned to South Africa, her homeland. She was buried on August 9, Women’s Day, at Hankey on the Gamtoos River Valley, in the Eastern Cape, her place of birth.
One of the people who helped bring Baartman’s remains back to South Africa is Diana Ferrus, a writer, poet and storyteller of mixed Khoisan and slave ancestry, who wrote a poem in 1998 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
“I wrote the poem for her, when I felt home sick and knew she wanted to go home. Her longing to be home, the physical home where she would feel safe and away from the mocking, exploitation and abuse,” says Ferrus.
Ferrus believes Baartman should be made a part of South African history.
“Her body was used to write racial theories that followed us for centuries. She suffered for us,” she says.
“At last she is resting in peace in her mother country, where she belongs,” says Ferrus.

KHOISAN LEADERS GATHER TO BURY SARAH BAARTMAN.

Let Her Rest  In Peace

We all carry the stories of our ancestors. I walk among the victims. Others my age are weighed down by the burden of the perpetrators.
In 1942, an 81-year-old Dutch Jewish woman was dragged from her home in Amsterdam, sick and frail, and forced onto a train to Westerbork transit camp. The Nazis were rounding up Jews, among them my family. My great-grandmother, Betje, hardly survived the train journey. She died a few days later. Perhaps she was lucky.
One hundred and nineteen other members of my family found their deaths in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka. I sit with the death certificates of nine of them. Seventy one years after the end of World War II and we, the second and third generations, are still haunted.
Rainer Hoess shows me the number tattooed on to his chest. It’s the same number Eva Mozes Kor, a holocaust survivor, had tattooed on to her arm when she was herded into Auschwitz as a child. Her parents and two older sisters died there. She and her twin sister miraculously survived the murderous experiments conducted on them at the camp.
Hoess has adopted Kor as his grandmother. Except that he isn’t Jewish. Far from it. His grandfather, Rudolf, was the commandant of Auschwitz. Each day, he’d oversee the murder of several thousand people, then come home to play with his children.
Hoess’s grandfather ordered the death of my great-grandmother and my entire family, bar a second cousin who survived while in hiding.
I meet Hoess at the entrance to Auschwitz. We stare through the barbed wire at the ruins of chimneys where Jewish inmates were forced to burn the bodies of people who’d just been gassed.
“It is a difficult decision for me to meet you,” I confess.
He understands.
“I cannot forgive or forget,” I whisper.
He says he’s not asking me to. Only survivors can do that and most have chosen not to.
We’re almost the same age but whereas I grew up in South Africa with a handful of stories about all the great aunts and uncles and cousins I lost, he grew up in Germany among former SS (Schutzstaffel) officers who would visit his house frequently.
It was only when he was a teenager that he understood his grandfather had been responsible for the murder of one million people and he decided to break all ties with his family. But he keeps the surname Hoess to show that every person has a choice in life.
<div id="attachment_31540" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31540" class="wp-image-31540 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545716857_master-1024x786.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="786" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545716857_master.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545716857_master-300x230.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545716857_master-600x461.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545716857_master-768x590.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />A concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland</div>
“What my grandfather did was wrong,” he says. “But if we as the future generations don’t come together, how we can we stop something like The Holocaust from happening again?”
The ghosts of my dead ancestors haunt me.
It is midnight in Auschwitz. I’m filming a documentary for Russia Today TV about Flip Slier, a 19-year-old second cousin who was gassed in the Sobibor death camp.
Just over a decade ago, a foreman was renovating a house in Vrolik Straat, Amsterdam, not far from where my great-grandmother was taken when he came across a box of letters hidden in the roof.
They were written by Slier to his parents from a labor camp in the early years of the war when Jews still did not know the fate awaiting them and the Nazis were trying to keep up a front of normality.
In 86 letters and postcards, he encourages his parents to keep courage, promising that they will all be together again one day. Slier never saw his parents again. They too were gassed. The letters remained hidden for more than a half a century.
Auschwitz was hell. Auschwitz is hell. And to experience hell at night when everything is dark, when there are shadows everywhere and where the air is still and quiet, is very frightening.
I meet the post lady who at 85 years old still remembers, as a little girl, hiding the letters Slier gave her through the barbed wire under her skirt so she could post them to his parents. I meet the wife of his best friend, Karel van Der Schaaf, who smuggled food into the camp for him. I meet the son of a pastor who encouraged every family in his village to risk their lives during the war and hide a Jewish person. Not one of them is Jewish and not one of them thought twice about what they were doing.
We each have a choice. I walk with the victims but choose to move on. Their stories guide the way.
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– Slier is an award-winning war correspondent, CEO of NewshoundMedia and Middle East bureau chief of Russia Today. Her grandfather, Isak, was a diamond cutter who immigrated to South Africa from Holland in the early 1920s.

Auschwitz Prepares For The 70th Anniversary Of The Liberation Of The Camp

At Midnight In Auschwitz

She is African and holds one of the most powerful jobs in the world. Known as Nigeria’s ‘Iron Lady’, she was appointed the World Bank’s Vice President and Treasurer in September last year. Prior to that, Oteh served as Director General of Nigeria’s Securities &amp; Exchange Commission (SEC), where her tough decision-making skills helped transform the country’s capital markets.
In November, she was honored with the Impact in Leadership award by FORBES WOMAN AFRICA.
Oteh, who was also a nominee for the FORBES AFRICA Person of the Year 2015, tells us successful women should pave the way for others.
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<h4>How has it been working at the World Bank, in Washington DC?</h4>
It’s been amazing, If I had to live anywhere away from home, it would definitely be in Washington DC.
First and foremost, it is such a great time to be returning to development, because between the time I left [the United States], back in 2005, and now, I’ve seen significant progress in the world.
I also think we need lots of resources to address development challenges. In July 2015, global leaders got together and said, we need to move from talking about millions to trillions and the fact that people recognized that is important, this is what we need to do something about.
The second thing is, the World Bank is truly the leader on all  these issues. The world is looking at it because it’s an institution that is AAA-rated; it has a footprint across the world.
They’re also looking at the World Bank, not just to use its own resources, but to be able to carry the people along, to capitalize the private sector to be involved in development. Innovation and creativity are very important.
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<h4>Considering the recent commodity slump in a few African countries, how can African economies see sustained economic growth without an over-reliance on natural supplies?</h4>
We are in transition in Africa, our leaders recognize our economy must be diversified and understand our most important aspect is our people and not what we dig out of the ground. Our leaders are focusing on how we can make sure we diversify our economy, how do we make sure we focus on manufacturing and other things that will enable us and protect our country from depending on one sole commodity.
In a sense, even though it’s been a difficult period for a lot of oil-exporting countries, we are in a period where leaders have been very focused on ensuring that in the future we can be more dependent on other things and not just oil and other natural resources. It’s a real opportunity, that’s how I see it.
We have the youngest population in the world; at least 62% of Africans are below the age of 40. Investing in young people is very important because it’s what ensures that entrepreneurs who are making a difference are able to continue to do so.
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<h4>Your take on the recent revelation that it will take over 100 years to close the global economic gender gap?</h4>
I don’t know why it would take 100 years, I pray it doesn’t. I think there’s been such significant progress made by women in leadership positions demonstrated by capacities; we’ve global leaders, such as the World Bank VP, who’s very keen to give women an opportunity; women like Indra Nooyi, who has managed to distinguish herself, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, who has been an amazing candidate.
The point is when we are given tasks as women, we do a good job, and the impact made by women in society is much more than an impact of investing in her. We’ve also had supportive men at different levels and so I’m certain it shouldn’t take 100 years.
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<h4>How do feel about receiving the Impact in Leadership award?</h4>
It’s very special. There are a lot of women who have distinguished themselves across Africa and it’s really an honor to be named a woman who has had significant impact in Africa.
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<h4>Your advice to young women who want to be where you are today?</h4>
First, seek to be the best and only that the best is good. Secondly, always remember that integrity is key, never compromise on your standards, and never compromise on your values. Thirdly, invest in yourself, crave knowledge, read, read and read.
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<h4>Plans for the future?</h4>
I’ve just started my dream job and I want to focus on being the best treasurer the World Bank has ever had.
I want to make sure I do my bit in ensuring the World Bank achieves its  goals. I’m looking forward to an even greater year in 2016.
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Nigerian Investment Conference

10 Minutes With  Arunma Oteh…

Sixteen-year-old Yaema lives in Kenema, a major city in Sierra Leone, with her aunt who raised her after both her parents passed away when she was still a little child. Around six months ago, one of her uncles sexually assaulted her when he came home drunk. Her aunt dismissed the incident when Yaema told her about it the following day.
“I was warned by my aunty to think carefully about my future before making such an evil accusation,” says Yaema.
Along with the emotional trauma she had to endure after the rape, Yaema now also has a physical reminder of it; she is pregnant. Her aunt will not accept that her brother is guilty. She accuses Yaema of sneaking away from school to play “husband and wife” with her boyfriend.
There is no respite at school either. Yaema goes through a rigorous routine of strapping a bandage across her stomach and wearing oversized cardigans to hide her pregnancy. The strapping, with the help of her friend Hassanatou, takes about an hour each morning. Although the strapping could be detrimental to the health of Yaema and her baby, it is something she is willing to do so she can realize her dream of finishing school and becoming a lawyer one day.
“If my teachers find out I am pregnant I will not be allowed to sit my BECE exams this year because of the ban,” says Yaema.
In April last year, the Sierra Leone government banned pregnant girls from attending school and sitting exams. The Basic Education Certificate of Examination (BECE) qualification is needed to attend senior secondary school.
Hassanatou and Yaema have been best friends since they met in primary six. This year they hope to pass their BECE exams and attend the Modern High School in the country’s capital Freetown.
“It is so unfair that Yaema might not get to graduate this year because of something she had no control over,” rues Hassanatou.
The ban sparked outrage from human rights organizations around the world.
“This is very disturbing for Amnesty International because this stigmatizes over 10,000 girls, destroying their future life chances,” says Sabrina Mahtani, West African Researcher for Amnesty International.
The ban comes at a time when children in Sierra Leone have already missed nine months of school due to the Ebola outbreak.
“This is a practice that predates Ebola and it was more of an informal practice in some schools, but now this informal private practice has been turned into a formal government policy,” says Mahtani.
According to Amnesty International, the Ebola crisis led to young girls becoming victims of sexual attacks and forced marriages. The National Strategy for the Reduction of Teenage Pregnancy, introduced by the government of Sierra Leone in 2013 and cited in the Amnesty International report, states that 28% of girls between the age of 15 and 19 are either mothers or pregnant.
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up after the war in 2004, said that the exclusion of pregnant girls from education is discriminatory and archaic and we think the ban of the pregnant girls is a missed opportunity to correct the previous wrong,” says Mahtani.
There are some who vehemently support the ban though. A teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, says the classroom is no place for a pregnant girl.
“These young girls are at a vulnerable time in their lives and, unfortunately, they learn from each other. If we encourage pregnant girls to come to school, others will think it is normal and will follow suit,” he says.
Those against the ban argue that it fails to take into account the high levels of sexual violence in Sierra Leone. Yaema attests she is not the only victim of rape.
“Two years ago, one of my good friends was sexually attacked by a group of men on her way home and unfortunately she did not survive the incident,” she says.
The fear of stigmatization prevents young girls from speaking out. In a statement to Amnesty International, Moijueh Kaikai, the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, says there has to be consequences for the girls that refused to adhere to the “do not touch” instructions issued during the Ebola outbreak.
Yaema, along with many other victims of sexual violence in Sierra Leone, is caught in the crossfire. Needless to say, their plight is agonizing.
“The blame is really being put on girls rather than the government. There is a limited amount of sex education in schools, which is not consistent or comprehensive across all of Sierra Leone and banning pregnant girls from schools does nothing to tackle the underlying causes of teenage pregnancy,” says Mahtani.
Even girls that aren’t pregnant are being humiliated. There are no official provisions for testing whether girls are pregnant. Teachers touch the girls’ stomachs and breasts inappropriately, while some are forced to take urine tests.
“The question that needs to be asked is what is the government doing about those who subject these poor girls to rape and other forms of sexual violence? What punishment is being given to them? Education should be a right for every single one of these girls and not a privilege that can be removed at any time,” says Gloria Ngozi, a human rights expert who works on children’s rights.
Only six in 10 girls between the ages of 15 and 24 in Sierra Leone are literate, according to a government health survey in 2013. With this ban, these figures will only get worse.

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Pregnant, Blamed , Banned

In late 2015, Liberia was declared Ebola-free. On the frontline of the fight against the disease was Cyvette Gibson, the Mayor of Paynesville, Liberia’s largest district.
Gibson (pictured right) personifies style and confidence, accompanied by a warm, infectious smile.
FORBES WOMAN AFRICA caught up with her in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the sidelines of the 2015 Africities Summit.
For the last three years, Gibson has served as the Mayor of Paynesville, a city with a population of 400,000. The Ebola outbreak was the toughest test she has yet faced. The virus killed more than 11,000 in West Africa, with around 4,800 of those from Liberia.
<div id="attachment_31529" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31529" class="wp-image-31529 size-medium" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Cyvette-111-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Cyvette-111-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Cyvette-111-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Cyvette-111-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Cyvette-111.jpg 681w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Mayor of Paynesville, Cyvette Gibson</div>
“It felt like an enemy had sort of descended upon us in the middle of the night. We didn’t even know what this enemy was, all we knew was that it was wiping people out,” says Gibson.
“The most painful thing was watching my citizens die and being unable to assist initially and eventually figuring out that a simple thing such as a touch – which is something all human beings do, no matter what culture, to console someone when they’re ill – we could no longer do.”
When the outbreak was at its peak, Gibson faced the problem head on and started by cleaning the streets. She enlisted the help of everyone she could find. Everyone, even the homeless and drug addicts, who had helped to rid her town of litter.
Gibson deployed block leaders to educate people, monitor their behavior and trace potential Ebola victims before the disease spread further. In addition, there were posters on every street corner showing the dangers and symptoms of Ebola. Radio jingles, television commercials and community vehicles blared with information 24 hours a day, throughout the city.
Ebola was a fight Gibson fought until the very end.
Outside of every public building in her city are washing stations; it is compulsory to wash your hands thoroughly with chlorinated or soapy water before entering.
Gibson’s sanitizing campaign ensured community leaders were around to supply information and medical services to locals, while monitoring signs of the virus spreading.
“Community leaders had a constant engagement with the people, every morning they would go house-to-house, check people’s temperatures, make sure all the names are on the list, their ages and check for unfamiliar people walking about the areas,” says Gibson.
“The power was within the community.”
Part of Ebola’s danger was that it could be contracted with just one touch, as a result many families lost their breadwinners.
In some instances, according to Gibson, a mother would have to sit in a room and watch her child die without being able to touch the child for fear of contracting the disease.
“Our healthcare workers were dying like flies. We already lacked doctors and nurses and we were just losing more. It was a very difficult time but we had to put our boots on and get onto the streets.”
Despite being the most difficult period in her career, Gibson believes it made her stronger.
Alongside her on the frontline in the war were many international organizations who helped with medical supplies, awareness campaigns and funding.
“We are also very thankful to our families and friends in organizations in the diaspora for their support and solidarity during this time. If it hadn’t been for them, we would not have reached where we are today.”
Gibson is the youngest mayor to serve in Liberia. When not buried by paperwork in her office, you’ll find her on the streets engaging with the community. She believes in leading by example and says that constantly engaging with her citizens builds a strong and united community.
“If I expect people to do something, I must exemplify it and exhibit the same behavior. Also, as a leader, I truly believe one must be humble, especially when you are serving the people,” she says.
Going forward, Gibson has formed partnerships with organizations around Liberia which will continue to assist in building a stable healthcare system. With donations from abroad, she has managed to increase capacity within community clinics and has trained more nurses and doctors.
“I can say now we can respond timeously to anything, even if we have an outbreak, we are able to deal with it by containing it as we already know the signs and symptoms. We still have a long way to go but we are headed in the right direction,” she says.
Gibson also plans to support neighboring countries still recovering from the disease.
With Gibson leading the charge, even Ebola didn’t stand a chance.

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Fighting An Unknown Enemy – And Winning

The African National Congress (ANC), the oldest political party on the continent, was formed on January 8, 1912, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. It took more than 40 years to recognize women in its ranks. The ANC Women’s League was born in 1956 – the same year it led 20,000 women on a march, against apartheid pass laws, to the Union Buildings, in Pretoria.
Their image has changed little in 60 years.
Fast forward to 2016 and the Women’s League is desperate to modernize its image. On January 7, in Bloemfontein, the eve of the ANC’s 104-year-anniversary celebrations, Women’s League members launched the Young Women’s Desk to rejuvenate itself. On the night of the launch, 5,000 women saw a glamorous fashion show instead of a march.
“The Women’s League is fundamentally conservative; it is structured in a way that is not open to the voices of these young women. It has a kind of an old notion of respect for age and hierarchy. But that’s politics that are not going to work anymore. These young women are not scared of anybody. You saw them in students’ marches. And they’re certainly not going to hold back demands in order to be polite and respectful,” says Shireen Hassim, a political science professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
“We identified a need for integrating young women within the ranks of the organization, so that we could make them politically conscious; understand why women have to be part of the struggle at a young age,” says Tokozile Xasa, spokesperson of the Women’s League, who admits it took 15 years to come up with a plan.
In the past, the Women’s League has been the butt of jokes and criticized for lacking vibrant ideas to improve the circumstances of women. Last year, a cheeky artist, Ayanda Mabulu, painted an image of President Jacob Zuma naked and sexually assaulting a woman. The Women’s League reacted with a protest march to the Union Buildings to protect the image of the president – it was a flop.
<div id="attachment_31526" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31526" class="wp-image-31526 size-medium" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Thoko-067-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Thoko-067-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Thoko-067-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Thoko-067-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Thoko-067.jpg 681w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Thoko Xasa</div>
“But there are many issues that they could take up. It could take up the issues of the feminization of poverty. It could be marching to demonstrate its concern about gender-based violence in society. It could be talking about not the indignities put upon the body of the president but indignities put upon black women every day. This is a complicated politics that is hard to understand,” says Hassim.
“I just don’t think, as a collective leadership, they have a clear and firm set of priorities. That’s why you get a lot of waffling from the leadership, they haven’t strategized properly about what their core message is and how they are going to move forward. I don’t think individually there’s a weakness – it is collective weakness. They are caught between always wanting to be supporting the men. They need to be much more assertive about women’s leadership,” says Hassim, the author of the book The ANC Women’s League: Sex, Politics and Gender, published in 2014.
A few weeks after the youth desk launch, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA met Xasa, who is also the Deputy Minister of Tourism, at her home in Waterkloof, Pretoria.
“Today, we pride ourselves that young women are breaking into the domain of men… We are able to say this is how far we have gone, relating to issues of our (misogyny) history. If you were following the (university) students’ fees protests (in South Africa), we have more young women who are unafraid to take up leadership. This made us realize that these young women are really going through stuff in those institutions. This desk is able to create platforms to engage them politically in their respective sectors,” says Xasa.
“The Women’s League will continue to play a leading role in transformation, especially on issues that our heroines ma’am Lilian Ngoyi, Gertrude Shope, Charlotte Maxeke fought for.”
Sixty years after the famous march to the Union Buildings, 800,000 of the 1.2 million ANC members are women. Yet, there are few at the top.
“We constitute a majority of membership but men still make it to the top positions, some of them literally use women to get to those positions. We are still grappling to ensure women take positions because it is not an event to change a mindset… We are challenged daily, patriarchy haunts us everywhere. Girls are not brought up as equal as boys, even in homes and schools,” says Xasa.
Despite this, she thinks there’s hope for young women. She defied ukuthwala (a traditional arranged marriage) as a teenager in the deep rural town of Libode, in the Eastern Cape.
Xasa is the face of the Women’s League. She, the sixth of seven children, lost her mother when she was 10 years old and there was no money to study after school. She became a general factory worker for less than a year, but a few years later, Xasa qualified as a teacher and taught for nine years. In 1994, Xasa was part of the first group of ANC councillors and then the first female mayor in the Eastern Cape. In 2001, she was a member of parliament in provincial legislature in Bhisho, Eastern Cape, and then the Deputy Minister of Tourism in 2010. She has a masters’ degree in public administration.
The former MEC for social development raised concerns about the limited access of young women to tertiary education.
“When they don’t have these fees to pay they will go to sugar daddies. There’s an unconfirmed report that the prevalence of HIV/Aids infections in these institutions is at an alarming rate. But what went wrong, because we have been preaching safe sex?” she says.
While there are tangible attempts to reclaim the Women’s League’s space in present day politics, elements of moral decay still exist. A week after the Young Women’s Desk launch in Bloemfontein, a group of irate women stormed the ANC office in Pretoria, protesting against an outcome at their branch meeting in the northern Gauteng township of Hammanskraal. They made the front page of local newspapers baring their buttocks.
“We were appalled. They denigrated all women. No action of that nature can justify any anger or dissatisfaction. Their demonstration was in bad taste and displayed a moral decay. If they are members of the Women’s League they will be subjected to disciplinary processes,” says Xasa.
She also expressed disappointment in the media. Xasa decried the lack of patriotism in the newspapers that published the naked women.
“Here we are trying to build a nation. Those are mothers, they have children. It’s all about journalists positioning themselves and polarizing themselves against the ANC. The level of journalism is disappointing. It’s not about promoting one organization, it’s about nation building… You could have denounced the women’s actions without using the pictures.”
“The ANC is losing the support of feminists. Even though it’s the party that delivered equality, it has not been strong in implementing what feminists would see as substantive equality going beyond having women in positions of political power… As we know there’s gender division of labor, it’s women who end up having to bear gender-based burdens. The government leadership is not seen on that front, it not effectively putting systems in place,” says Hassim.
Xasa disagrees.
“Democracy allows people to say things in their own way, so I don’t know how somebody regards herself being a feminist more than others. As the Women’s League we are the only women’s organization that is the voice of women,” she says.
Despite the challenges, the Women’s League prides itself on the achievements of their own. Early this year, the ANC National Chairperson and Women’s League leader, Baleka Mbete, was awarded the King Legacy Award in the United States. The award was named after Martin Luther King Jr, an American human rights activist. It recognizes people who make a significant contribution in race relations, justice and human rights. The former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, are previous recipients.
“We are proud of Sis’ Baleka. No South African had received this award. She’s the first woman in Africa. This was due to her demonstration of leadership qualities,” says Xasa.
Xasa also reveres Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. She is the first woman in that position and had served as a minister under three presidents in her country.
“In the African Union, Dlamini-Zuma is going to leave behind a remarkable legacy. As we speak now, we are talking Agenda 2063, it came through her. We are changing the perception of Africa, uniting Africa. We have many more women coming behind them,” says Xasa.
With all these achievements, since 1994, the Women’s League failed to nominate a woman to be president of the country – a topic that is taboo in its ranks.
“We have a fresh mandate from the 2015 conference that women are ready to take up leadership of the country and leadership of the organization. Women have grown and demonstrated they have capacity. When the time comes, we will put forward a candidate. The name cannot be mentioned but we are ready to challenge men.”
Xasa says they have a mandate beyond South Africa. They host other women from the continent at their empowerment programs.
“If you look into the wars on the continent and the impact they have on women and children, it calls for us to really get our house in order to support those women. We were fully behind the campaign to return the Nigerian abducted girls by Boko Haram. Unfortunately those girls have not been freed.”
Sixty years after the march to the Union Buildings, apartheid was defeated but the struggles of women continue.

Tag: February 2016

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