Let’s believe in Nosipho

South Africa: 

A lonely young girl shows talent for fashion design 

Nosipho Xolo is a 15-year-old girl from the Eastern Cape in South Africa. She travelled alone to the province of KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year, looking for her older brother after both her parents died – only to discover that he too had passed away.

Alone in the world, she found her way to the Sinethemba temporary shelter for abused and destitute women and children at Ifafa, south of Durban – a humble lodging that has struggled for eight years as the only refuge of its kind to serve the vast area surrounding it.

The Sinethemba staff have reported her case to the Eastern Cape department of Social Development. Nosipho has spent the last three months at the shelter while DSD officials investigate options for finding her a home.

While she waits, wonders and wishes, Nosipho uses donated pens and pencil crayons to create fashion drawings in a precious exercise book: a page of shoes, boots and sandals; a spread of dresses in imagined fabrics; a collection of swimwear. Her talent is obvious to the few people who have come across it, but who else would know of her potential to be a successful young African designer?

Sinethemba means “we believe”. What does Nosipho’s future hold? As she works on her drawings, mourning the loss of her family and inspired by the beauty within her, what can she believe in?

This Mandela Day (18th July), can you play a part in making the rest of Nosipho’s journey a happy, healthy and fulfilled one? We appeal to you for ideas, resources and support for Nosipho, so that she can find herself in a loving home, resume her schooling, and be sponsored towards a career in design.

If you can help this courageous young girl, even with a small action, contact: Sinethemba’s manager, Rachel Tomlinson, or Charmaine Smit, the assistant manager on: [27] (0)39 977 8220 or [27] (0)72 150 1504

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Supported by Amnesty International-Durban Chapter

Mrs Lesley Frescura
Chairperson, Durban Chapter (formerly National Director)
Telephone: 27 31 266 4150
E-mail: galefra@mweb.co.za






Survivors don’t use rubbish bags: Self-belief at Sinethemba Shelter
By Judith King
on behalf of Amnesty International, Durban Chapter, South Africa
Submitted to the “16 Shelters for 16 Days” Stop Violence Against Women Campaign
AI Action Circular ACT 77/014/2006
September 2006

Ifafa Beach is a quiet, tiny coastal town built around an estuary and lagoon in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, in the district of Ugu. A narrow, patchily tarred road turns toward the sea from the southern highway, and down past some unremarkable 1970’s houses perched on the low cliffs above the shore. The pristine seascape, however - even under a sky cast in cloud - has a grandeur that resonates with the isiZulu name given to it (according to local history) by King uShaka: “place of the sparkling waters”.

Tucked behind a quaint white bungalow that houses the local Library and serves the town’s population of 400, is another dwelling. This neat, simple house, with its small verandah offering a wedge of sea-view, serves a much larger group with infinitely more urgent needs: it is the Sinethemba Shelter for Domestic Violence Victims, the only lodging of its kind on the entire south coast including its inland terrain, an immense area covering rural, peri-urban and urban communities.

Sinethemba, which means “we believe”, offers abused women and children of all ages a temporary haven from the horror of abandonment, assault, rape and the threat of death that makes living in their homes too tortuous to endure. Co-founded by the Ifafa Beach Women’s Action Group in March 2004, with funding from the European Union, daily welfare grants for each victim and donations in both cash and kind from various local benefactors, the Shelter rents its premises from a local owner.

The dedicated Shelter staff are trained to protect and nurture countless victims, injured by every kind of degradation and pain, some more brutal than the imagination can bear. Headed by Rachel Tomlinson, the team consists of an assistant manager, a bi-lingual house-mother, a cleaner, a gardener, a secretary and a driver. Working closely within a referral system of police stations, courts, trauma centres, welfare departments, hospitals, charities, businesses, community organisations and activist networks, Sinethemba meets every need with resolute follow-through, from legal and social support to counselling, skills training and access to medical help.

Tomlinson and her colleagues respond to all the violated guests who come to the Shelter with professionalism, respect and compassion. The house is a refuge in every sense, with its three bedrooms, kitchen, lounge, study and activity room maintained with pride: gleaming floors and windows complement the simple, comfortable furnishings and pretty linen; regular, nutritious meals are prepared with love, and a hand-written poster of house-rules testifies to an ethos of sanctity and communitarian reverence.

For the constant stream of broken, frightened, demoralised and destitute women and children who find their way to Sinethemba, such surroundings and responses are a blessed antidote to the ugliness and cruelty of their daily existence. Their courage in escaping its vicious round of physical and emotional attacks is rewarded with the solace they need to heal and start afresh. Tomlinson describes the enormity of these victims’ agony, and the challenges facing the caregivers, in frank terms.

The Sinethemba Shelter has handled more cases than she can possibly cover in one sitting, and the nature of their plight is painful to describe. Among these were a grandmother of 84, beaten and robbed of her pension by her grandson, another raped and thrown out of her community, women disabled and disfigured for life, shot by their partners, infected with HIV and other STDs, an 11-year-old girl sold into marriage by her father to a 40-year-old man, and a mother whose daughter was killed by her father and his friend dragging her from the house and crushing her skull with rocks – the woman blamed herself for this murder, because she had filed a charge for child maintenance of R150 a month.

The perpetrators are not all men: some grandmothers and mothers abuse their children, and Tomlinson recently counselled a young man whose older wife had virtually imprisoned him. Sinethemba takes in numerous children who have been turned into the street by their mothers, and find safe placements for them. Some victims have had to be relocated to shelters in other provinces to escape their abusers. All guests are given time after their arrival to process the loss and violation associated with their trauma, whereafter interaction is facilitated in group sessions, and the women and children are given physical and psychological space to tell their stories.

These cases belie the culture of rights enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution, and the frequent talk of stopping violence against women and children, dealing with HIV and AIDS, providing poverty relief and curbing substance abuse. The reality on the ground is that our nation is writhing in pain and disease, yet far too little is being done to sustain and extend the few facilities and services that have been set up to address these crises. Despite broad public awareness of the scale and range of the problems, the Shelter’s requests for funding and other resources are often met with refusals or silence. In many instances, the potential donors, be they local government bodies or NGOs, set their own agendas for support, and their priorities bear no relation to the urgent needs of these desperate people.

With the existing Shelter house having been put up for sale, despite frequent attempts to secure larger premises on another site at Ifafa Beach which is soon to be auctioned, Tomlinson has had no response from her letters to the provincial Premier appealing for assistance. Proposals and applications for ongoing funding to the Human Rights Foundation and the National Lottery Fund to launch and maintain the Shelter’s various programmes have been declined.

Tomlinson and her staff want much more for the women and children of our nation. “When I see them getting out of the police van with the few possessions they have salvaged during their escape from the only home they know in black rubbish bags, it is heartbreaking,” she recounts. “There are seldom any personal documents in those black bags, no ID books or marriage or birth certificates – the vital papers they need to establish their claim to citizen’s rights. Those black bags represent the degradation of their humanity; in a very real sense, the bags signify the women’s own self-image – as if they are rubbish, the refuse of society, worn out, worthless and disposable.”

Tomlinson’s concept for an effective intervention campaign to lift these abused and wasted women and children is – literally and figuratively – to turn their deprecation and despair into dignity and self-regard. “We would urge women in abusive relationships to keep original and copied versions of their family’s important documents in safe and accessible places, preferably packed in proper bags along with other emergency items, ready to grab when they need to flee for their lives. We need to mobilise a massive communications drive around this, listing practical steps towards self-liberation, the services that exist to help them, and how they can access them – so that victims can become survivors.”

This philosophy governs the high standards of care to which the Sinethemba staff subscribe. “While we appreciate receiving donated supplies of basic foodstuffs like rice and maize-meal during awareness rallies, we believe that every guest at our Shelter deserves a roast and a dessert every Sunday,” says Tomlinson. “When the women are ready to begin new lives and search for or start their first job, they should leave carrying a decent handbag - they need to set out looking and feeling like women of worth.”

Recently, Sinethemba took in a widow and her five children after they had been evicted from their home by her in-laws and lived in a tent on the beach for six months. “This woman can’t get work if she and her children can’t even live decently. They are members of our community, and the Municipality has a duty to provide suitable facilities for people in these circumstances,” Tomlinson charges. “Why does the Umdoni Municipality not respond to situations like these? The authorities have refused to place our request for another site on their meeting agenda. Our Shelter is offering to relieve local government of this work, and all we ask is for their patronage in helping us to acquire the infrastructure we need, so that our funds can be spent in a more cost-beneficial manner. Why should a women’s shelter be regarded as low in priority and a distasteful topic for discussion and action? If the property we have identified is auctioned, what will the Municipality do with the money from the sale?”

These realities foreground the harsh discrepancies that prevail between the media hype of awareness campaigns like the 16 Days programme and its attendant political rhetoric: hundreds of white ribbons and photo opportunities do not translate into action during the remaining 349 days of the year. “South African civil society must flex its muscles and put an end to lip-service from local officials,” says Tomlinson. She has obtained documentary support for this call from the local Magistrate’s court and a signed petition from community members.

Having said this, Tomlinson is also quick to note the level of concerned involvement demonstrated by the Shelter’s social partners; thanks to a sympathetic Station Commissioner in the district, Sinethemba enjoys excellent working relationships with the SA Police stations in nearby Umkomaas, Hibberdene, Umzinto and Scottburgh, whose officers do regular night patrols and can be relied upon to bring women to the Shelter and take them to Court for their case hearings. A nearby security company helps out by providing vigilance for and around the Shelter to protect its residents from vengeful perpetrators and opportunistic criminals. Because Ifafa Beach is a small town, its inhabitants have adopted a neighbourly approach to the Shelter and frequently bring donations in cash and kind. Transnet donated a sportsground and play-park for the youth and children.

“We receive weekly food parcels from the local branch of Woolworths, but we need other supermarket chains, financial institutions and manufacturers to play their part too. There is little or no public transport infrastructure serving this area, so instead of focusing solely on scaling up such services to meet demand generated by the 2010 Soccer World Cup, we need a vehicle and funds to cover petrol and repairs, monthly electricity and water bills, property rates and insurance fees.”

Other pressing needs include baby-goods, first-aid kits and basic medicines; because many of their intake are HIV-positive, the Shelter has special and urgent requirements for in-house HIV/AIDS training and resources, particularly so that they can supplement government clinic services by offering advice on and referrals for anti-retroviral treatment and support.

The Sinethemba Shelter is committed to strengthening - as and however it can - a range of related social outreach initiatives through participation in programmes targeting the elderly, the disabled and more general youth empowerment projects within schools. It is in this spirit of reciprocity and virtuous agency that Sinethemba does so much with so little.

As it strives to promote a culture of caring, the Shelter is an exemplar of moral responsibility and responsiveness. Indeed, in the place of sparkling waters, the Sinethemba Shelter is a contemporary jewel in our ancestral crown, and deserves due homage.