By Lwazi Dyantyi

What matters to me is my friends and me.

The reason why I say that my life matters to me is that I have been and still going through a lot of painful things alone. When my mother passed away I was lost because she was my guider and adviser. My father is a Junkie and he don’t care about me and he says that I must be “INDEPENDENT” to him. That’s very painful to be told by the only parent you are left with. I know that good and bad times come and go so it’s part of life. Now I have to make and take positive things and choices of my life. I love myself no matter what the situation is I am only me NOBODY ELSE.

Many of my friends are fortunate than me they still have both of their parents. They are given everything that they want at any time than me. I once had o low self esteem because of the situation I was facing. I advice them to LOVE,CARE&RESPECT them while they still have them both. I have seen that most of the youngster get LOST and start to be CORRUPT when one or both of their parents died. I don’t want my friends to be like that when that time comes in their lives. I try by all means to make or prepare them that PATH when that time came. I love my friends very much and I care for them.

Yes in life there are GOOD and BAD times but I am glad that that time came when I loved GOD because he is my savior. I love myself no matter what the situation is because they are making me to be a STRONG and BRAVE man in my future. I LOVE MYSELF VERY MUCH THANK YOU.

NOTE BY Fre: for more pictures that the students have taken, please visit our gallery

By Frerieke van Bree

Nwabisa Dyonashe is a 15 year old South African girl who lives in Township Khayelitsha near Cape Town. She is a 10th grade student of COSAT (Center of science and Technology). She is one of our inspiring students of the art and leadership initiative that Anasuya and I started at the school.

What inspires me so much about these students is their willingness to learn, to make a difference, to be great. The difficulties that a lot of them have to face on a day to day base are enormous. The responsibilities those 15 year olds have to take, go way beyond what I could have imagined when i was 15. Yes my teenage years were not always the greatest, but i start appreciating all opportunities i had more an more by seeing those students here in Khayelitsha apreciate what they have got.

Enjoy this short, but very powerful text of Nwabisa, together with the pictures she took of her house and family:

By Nwabisa Dyonashe

I live with my grandmother with my brother and sister. She is a pensioner so she doesn’t have enough money for buying everything in the house. So I have committed myself to working in a salon every Saturday and Sunday to help her. I help her by buying things that are finished and buy things that are needed in school and maybe a pair of shoes for either my brother or sister. Doing this for my family really matters to me. I don’t feel like people have neglected us. I just know it’s my life and I am living it. And I don’t expect people to feel sorry for me.

The Art and Leadership Academy is providing the fundamentals of leadership to previously (and in most instances, still) disadvantaged youth from across the Cape Flats. The Academy excavates the repressed and undiscovered self-love and pride in being South African in COSAT students as a vehicle of empowerment.

The students learn public speaking, debate, critical analysis, and team-building to identify social problems that are negatively impacting them in their community. Through the integration of the arts: creative writing, theater, music, photography and film, the students analyze alternative and effective ways of expressing emotions and protest while learning from the Masters.

In direct response to the resignation regarding the ongoing social problems in their community, the students then create viable and sustainable solutions through their development of community projects that they will learn how to manage. These projects will involve members of their community who will work in partnership with the students. This awakened and empowered love for their community is the driving force for them becoming the powerful and well-trained leaders of the country in a few years time, as they will have a first-hand experience of making the difference that matters.

The Arts & Leadership Academy was a big hit in it’s limited run with a select group of 11th and 12 th graders from COSAT earlier this year. Love To The World is thrilled to be providing this training and development to the entire 10th grade of COSAT High School.

By Frerieke van Bree

20.000 women marched on the 9th of Aug 1956 towards the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the pass laws (special identification documents which curtailed an African’s freedom of movement during the Apartheid era.)
that proposed further restrictions on the movements of women.

Those brave women risked to be arrested, detentioned or banned. They demonstrated courage and strength and proved that they could organise themselves, that they were not powerless, that the commonly accepted stereotype of women (tied to the home and not politically mature) was outdated and inaccurate.

Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! (Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock.) was what the women were singing during their march. The latest incarnation of their song: ‘Strike a woman, strike a rock’ has come to represent women’s courage and strength.

The 1956 March helped to shape the ideologies of many, particular those that drafted the South African Constitution and the Commission of Gender and Equality. August 9th is now celebrated as Women’s Day in South Africa.

Women are driving forces in the transformation of South Africa. Within the black community for example they are the ones that 1. Stand for their family, 2. Work, 3. Do all the cooking, housekeeping. Cape Town’s mayor (and national opposition leader), Helen Zille is a perfect example of a woman with courage and power.

Personally, through my profession (building industry) and experience of working both here in South Africa and in The Netherlands, I can conclude that traditional role-plays (women at home, men in power) are still much more accurate here in South Africa compared to Europe. ..That is one of the reasons why I would like to give extra credits to Helen Zille and all those other great female activists here in South Africa!

The attached photograph shows two beautiful young South African women. One being from the Xhosa culture the other from the Coloured Community.