They go to die. Until now. For decades, workers in South Africa’s gold and diamond mines have endured harsh working conditions, including crowded living quarters, poor safety measures, extreme temperatures, coercive labor contracts and separation from their family members.
Louisiana poet and activist Clint Smith performs a chilling spoken word poem describing the South African miners’ struggle to stay alive
Calling all thespians! Drama for Life, an HIV/AIDS awareness theater program out of Johannesburg’s Wits University, is now accepting applications from African artists to participate in their summer 2012 Sex Actually Festival. The boldly named festival, scheduled for Aug. 23 to Sept. 1, brings together activists and artists (and activist-artists) from across the continent who have a common purpose: using the stage to put a human face on HIV/AIDS.
Even for those of us who can’t apply, the festival stands as a reminder that amid all the statistics, HIV/AIDS remains first and foremost a human issue, sitting at the busy crossroads of sex, sexuality, gender, human rights, and health. While antiretroviral therapies (ARTs) save millions of lives by actively suppressing development of the virus, programs like those featured at the Sex Actually Festival work to evaluate, decipher, and appreciate the disease’s cultural complexities.
The Global Fund and South Africa’s award-winning Isango Ensemble have joined forces to breathe new life into “La Bohème,” a classic 19th century opera by the acclaimed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Titled “Abanxaxhi,” (the Xhosa language translation of the original title), the contemporary interpretation transplants the setting from Paris in the 1830s to South Africa today, complete with revamped instrumentation for marimbas and steel pans. But even with these drastic changes in time and place, the opera’s main storyline doesn’t require any tweaking. The opera tells the tragic tale of Mimi, a young seamstress who dies of tuberculosis — a story all too common in the South African townships.
“Some stories are so strong that even if you take them from a hundred years ago when they were written and put them in the present context, they still make sense,” explains Pauline Malefane, the ensemble’s music director and star performer. “’Bohème’ is like that. It’s exactly how people live in the township: People who are unemployed, but very happy within themselves, and know how to look after each other.”
Tens of thousands of supporters of South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), rallied to celebrate the ANC’s 100th birthday this weekend. The ANC was established in 1912 in the central South African city of Bloemfontein, where the celebrations were held.
ANC members during the early days
The ANC is credited with being the first inclusive African liberation movement, uniting South Africans from diverse ethnic and economic groups. The ANC led the opposition to apartheid, the state-enforced racial segregation that persisted in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.
The government’s ban on organized opposition meant the ANC was soon classified as a terrorist organization, and many top ANC leaders spent decades in South Africa’s prisons. Most notably, Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison before leading negotiations that led South Africa to a multi-racial democracy.
As promised in my blog post yesterday, here’s an update on some of First Lady Michelle Obama and family’s latest adventures in South Africa and Botswana. Over the last day or so, Mrs. Obama and her family toured the Mandela Foundation, met with Nelson Mandela himself, visited South Africa’s apartheid museum and rubbed shoulders with South Africa’s First Lady Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma. But here’s some fun stuff that I want you to catch up on…
Here’s footage of Mrs. Obama and family getting off the airplane in Pretoria, South Africa. Apparently, Mrs. Obama’s orange and black geometric print jacket is by Nigerian designer Duro Olowu -– great way to show her support for African commerce. And the girls proudly sported giant South African flags.
A new report, “Low Quality Education as a Poverty Trap” by the Social Policy Research Group at Stellenbosch University, has provided a troubling assessment of the quality of education available to children in South Africa. The study reports that by age eight, school children from the most affluent 20 percent of South Africa’s population were already far outperforming children from poorer families, showing stark distinctions between the prospects of children from poorer communities and those from more affluent communities at an early age.
The top 20 percent of state schools have adequate facilities and attract the best teachers, mostly because they charge tuition fees.
One South African farming community is reclaiming the vineyard with something called Oesfees, a festival that captivates Western Cape communities every spring. Combining their annual wine harvest with traditional food and dance, the farm workers of Franschhoek Valley keep their culture alive through music and spirit. Though the 2011 celebration took place a few weeks ago, ONE couldn’t resist highlighting some of the cultural merriment for our A-List series. Take a look at the video below:
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
