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"When Humanity Comes Together..........."

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  I t’s never easy to put into words what one experiences when visiting Hannah’s Pace of Safety. It’s hard not to come away emotionally affected by the stories that are told about the babies that are there. It’s hard not come away completely in awe of the work done by Janine and Dion Fabe and the team. Yesterday was again a reminder of the words coined by Greg Havenga. “When humanity comes together and walks in love, His great works are accomplished”. “The team” assembled again to celebrate the culmination of another act of sacrifice. However the newbies to the group and some of the more seasoned members were taken on the tour of the nurseries. The most moving encounter was meeting Baby “Eden”. Baby “Eden” was born prematurely to a multiple drug addicted mother. As result she is suffering the effects of withdrawal symptoms akin to those that an adult would go through when going cold turkey. She has to sleep under a specially manufactured weighted blanket that simulates the effect of
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A Note To The Apartheid Apologist

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  The problem with researching history and digging up the past you never know what you may find and stumble on. I hated history at school. I saw no point in learning about JvR and the rest of them. So for all my years at school and post matric, history was a no go area for me. About two years ago I developed a renewed interest after I was introduced to an alternative history, the history we were not taught at school and the stories that were not included in the school curriculum of the day. In addition I read the book The Lie of 1652 by Patric Mellet. This further reinforced my belief in how horribly the historic story was skewed to make colonialism and other evils look so beautiful. I also started researching the history of sport in South Africa, specifically the history of cricket. Now I must say right up front that my experience in doing research is very little. But what I have found thus far has made my head spin and quite honestly caused me to ask many a question. The focus of
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Meet Coach Errol

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A llow me to introduce you to Coach Errol. He is the coach of a fledgling little soccer team in the place called Blikkiesdorp known as Blikkiesdorp United FC. For those that do not know "Blikkiesdorp", so named by the people who live there actually has a much fancier name. It was known as the "Symphony Way TEMPORARY Relocation Site", with the emphasis on "temporary". People that were taken off the streets by than DA queen Helen and than city mayor Dan were moved to this site in 2007. They built neat little single room corrugated iron shacks, placed them in neat rows with nothing inside. Every fourth shack had to share a toilet and there were no bathrooms. No foundations were laid for the structures and there were no floors laid for the shacks. They were simply put down on an open piece of rocky ground. After all. It was just a "temporary solution" to a growing housing crisis in the city. Now, sixteen years later "houses" are been buil
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The Scourge of Unequal Education

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I listened to an interview this morning. I sat in the car for a few minutes and again, that horrible feeling you get when you ask all the WWWH questions and get no answers swept over me. The lady on the radio was the acting principle of Beaconvale High and she was telling how she had to council students after two of their classmates were shot in apparent gang related shootings. The one, a young man who had dreams of becoming an architect, was shot and killed the day before he was to get his results. He had passed his matric and was going to chase his dream. WHY did this happen WHO did it HOW could we allow this. WHEN will it stop. I wrote a little piece last year using the beaches around our city as an illustration of the inequality around our city. Two days ago a mother who we give a lift to told us how her son did not want to go to school due to the trauma he’s experiencing as result of having to fight for a seat in an overcrowded class room at the school he attends in
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“If you stand for nothing……………………..”

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“Silence in the face of injustice is injustice in action” I remember years ago as a novice freelancer going to an anti Zuma march in Cape Town. I remember been cautioned to “be careful” and “do you think it’s safe”. Protest have a way of unravelling and becoming violent when people’s emotions get out of hand. However, I was determined to get pictures and be “part of the action”. There I was. One of many media persons and hundreds of protestors. My mission was accomplished. So in the grand scheme of things the protest march to highlight the need for free sanitary products for women was probably never going to attract huge media attention. It was mentioned on a news bulletin earlier the morning. The organisers, Team Free Sanitary Pads NPC had apparently received some thirty thousand signatures in support and the protest was to culminate in memorandums been handed over to parliamentary representatives in Cape Town and Pretoria. There were two media house photographers, a TV crew and me. I
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There are People.........

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There are people in the world that do amazing things for others. There are people in this COUNTRY that do amazing things, for others. There are people in this CITY that do amazing things, for others. People that shy away from cameras, lights and action. People that silently go about changing lives in ways often not seen by the media.  A couple months ago I reconnected with an old school friend. An amazing woman by the name of Marchelle Hendricks. Marchelle has the incredible gift of connecting people. People who are change makers in their own right. After a number of phone conversations she decided to me to a man by the name Greg Havenga. The branches of this tree has sprouted in so many directions in a very short space of time, so much so that I have had so many perspective changing moments that go beyond my feeble understanding. For example. Saturday past Greg, his daughter Ilsa, a friend Ricardo and I went to a place hidden away in the heart of Westridge, Mitchells Plane. A very
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Rising Against The Odds

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  I visited two sports fields in the last week. The “visits” were to capture moments at two very contrasting events. The one was to take pictures of an initiative to uplift a fledgling soccer team in Blikkiesdorp, while the other was to capture the moments at the award ceremony of the Hanover Park Cricket club. Marchelle Hendricks invited me to meet Coach Errol and Mendoza, the captain of Bliikkiesdorp United. Mandoza is twenty years old and in Grade twelve. He came straight from a winter school class to meet with us. They were brought to the Cape Town Spurs field to meet Liam and club owner Alexi Efstathiou. The soon to be launched initiative is called “Boots For Blikkies”. The management and team of CTS have taken Blikkies United under their wings so to say and drive an initiative to supply BU with kit for the upcoming season. It is one of those “watch this space” events waiting in the wings. Amidst all of that I had the opportunity to chat to Alexi Efstathiou. A humble man with th
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