Women Who Build a Better Future for South Africa: 2022, is the first in our series. We have a collection that we believe will serve as a token of memory and information, of strength and resilience, a coffee table book, an archive, an educational and informational piece of South African history, a slice of South African memorabilia and a gesture of our commitment toward South African women’s history.
In this collection, the women contributors share their journeys with us, the hardships they have endured, the difficulties they lived through during apartheid, and also the resilience with which they fought. We want to ensure that every South African never forgets where we all come from and envision along with us, where we are going.
This year, in our first collection, we chose sixty-six women to mark the period of sixty-six years since the historic march, 1956-2022. The names of the women selected by us in the early stages came through discussion and consultation; the said women in turn put other women’s names forward. We trusted the process, each in our respective places of work, with the understanding that we would ensure that women of all walks of life would be included. The women included in this collection are nurses and medical doctors, engineers, town planners and architects, community workers and humanitarians, journalists and media personalities, writers and publishers, chief financial officers and accountants, teachers and professors, businesswomen and entrepreneurs.
They are also women who have undeclared disabilities, women who are educators, activists, criminologists and grassroots organisers, women who are transgendered and identify in many different ways, each aware of the gendered and racialised environments they face, and each determined to not let anything stand in their way of excelling to the best of their ability, and the best potential that parents and communities cultivated within them, and which they have been encouraged to put forward. Our mission is to build and assist, envision and affirm, recognise and bestow acknowledgement and offer our South African community and the global community at large, a significant piece of our history. And that is, our ability to thrive despite the obstacles and to assist others in the process.
