25 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Manti Maifadi Healing through reconnecting with nature Manti Maifadi at Naledi Farm In 2010 Manti Maifadi wrote a children’s book in Sesotho called Tshimong ya Meroho le Naledi (In the Vegetable Garden with Naledi). She was on maternity leave from her job in the National Department of Health as a Medical Scientist, while expecting the birth of her youngest child, Naledi. The book is a fictional story that centres around a vegetable garden and was self-published in 2012. In the same year, Manti and her husband Sam, decided that they wanted to create a real-life ‘vegetable garden’; a physical space where children could come and “walk into the book”, to learn how food grows, roam around barefoot, and engage with the plants and the land. In 2015 they found some land on the outskirts of Pretoria and moved from their city home to the three-hectare plot that they named Naledi Farm. “The idea was to create a centre for teaching and healing. To get people away from the buzz of the city, to unwind and relax.” They started with a simple ‘Harvest Table’ where friends would come once a month to enjoy the food from their garden and listen to the musings of an invited speaker. This soon grew into a more diverse operation that hosted sustainability workshops, children’s camps as well as an events venue and an artist residency programme. Naledi Farm is a business, and there is no getting away from that, but it is an enterprise that aims to change people’s lives. They advocate for sustainable practices that promote self-care, independence and environmental responsibility. “We provide the space where people can breathe a little before going back to the ever-demanding modern world. Hopefully, we inspire them to start their own little patch and grow a few rows of edible gardens. If we can do it, then anyone can do it…If we can inspire one person then our job is done.” Manti is aware that many people are going through a lot, living behind high walls, bombarded by traffic, noise and other inescapable features of urban life that negatively affect their emotional and mental health. Trapped in this concrete jungle, with little to no chance of breaking free. It is the experience and values of her childhood growing up in QwaQwa, in the Free State, that she wants to extend to others. “I don’t remember a day we had to buy vegetables. We were not wealthy but there was always plenty for us to eat from my father’s garden. That was my upbringing.” To advocate for others to have peace in their lives is no small mission, and Manti has made it the centre of her business; a business that wants to heal the world, one busy city dweller at a time. < Previous Item Next Item >

47 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Tshepiso Makoni Using t-shirts to tackle stereotypes Tshepiso Makoni at home in Soweto, Gauteng Art changes the people who engage with it, sometimes in the most subtle ways. Artists find inspiration and meaning in different places, the motivational drive to create is fed by the feeling of making something with purpose. Purpose, to Tshepiso, comes in starting conversations that change the way her community sees themselves, and each other. As one half of the artistic duo Tebo X Emeka, Tshepiso creates T-shirts that fuse photography and graphic design to gently push tired old narratives in a new direction. For their first project, Taxiology, they focused on the taxi industry around Soweto. They wanted to celebrate the industry for its unique position in South African culture, accepting the perceived view of taxis as inconvenient, noisy and dangerous whilst also celebrating the positive interactions that they facilitate. You can’t find the culture that we have here anywhere else. When you get inside a taxi you have to greet everyone, you combine your money with the other passengers and send it to the front. You tell jokes, you discuss the news. Tebo X Emeka wants to help people see themselves for who they are and who they could be by providing representation of township culture in fashion, using the T-Shirt as an accessible, portable gallery for purpose-driven artwork. More recently Tshepiso has designed and created the disability pride t-shirt, again looking to change the conversation around a subject that has been stigmatised and stereotyped. T-Shirts are a way to begin a conversation, for us to be able to represent people with disabilities. It allows for their voices to be heard and for them to be seen. Her hope is that the t-shirts will start a conversation and become a driving force for action. They want to partner with the government to use disability pride shirts as a starting point to create a new language around disability, public consciousness and acceptance. By creating work that has meaning, and the intention to drive conversation, Tshepiso is planting the seeds of change in her community. To change the way that people view their community and therefore themselves is no small idea. < Previous Item Next Item >

66 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Love Our City Klean Greening & cleaning Joburg inner city Zwelihle and Metsi Magwaza at LOCK in Bez Valley Sometimes being an Actionist isn’t born out of one single brilliant idea. Sometimes it comes from a passion to see change and the dedication to finding a space for yourself in a world that feels like it is determined to work against you. Zwelihle and Metsi Magwaza are open about the bumpy road that they have ridden in their mission to clean up Joburg, whilst also finding a cost-effective and sustainable output for the waste that is collected. It all started when they were living in Marshaltown. They would walk to the Johannesburg Art Gallery and pass by Joubert Park which, at the time, was full of litter. Instead of looking the other way, they decided to do something about it, so they invited their artist friends to help them clean up the park. Over time they had to formalise their cleanup project in order to work with the City and other organisations - they called it Love Our City Klean (LOCK). Since 2016 they have been trying out different ideas to see what works, fully embracing failure as a way of learning and moving forward, never losing sight of the big picture, to clean up the city that they love. Much of the struggle has been in dealing with big corporations that do not benefit financially from the recycling of their products. Several initiatives that LOCK have trialled had to be abandoned as they were seen as not being economically viable, despite providing a more responsible and sustainable environmental footprint. But the ideas keep on coming, and the enthusiasm never wanes. Zwelihle and Metsi have helped to create a community swap shop at Victoria Yards where local residents of Bertrams and Bez Valley are encouraged to collect, sort and clean recyclable items and drop them off in exchange for points which can be used to buy food, clothing and books. In 2021 PIKITUP offered them a space in their Bez Valley garden site. Already established as a recycling drop-off centre, it provides an undercover space to sort and sell items that have more value than standard bulk recycling items such as paper and plastic. From this venue, they want to create a space where artists can come to be inspired, and they are passionate about building a bespoke service for artists who require specific items for collage, sculpture and other disciplines. This is a labour of love for Zwelihle and Metsi, but they cannot do it without help and they understand the power of finding the right partners; responsible business owners who are also passionate about the environment, and the city of Johannesburg. You can find them on Instagram: @weloveourcityklean and Facebook: @loveourcityklean. < Previous Item Next Item >

35 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Tarryn Johnston Reviving the Hennops river Tarryn Johnston at the Hennops River The way that other people talk about Tarryn Johnston is a better indication than any other of her passion for cleaning up the Hennops River. Their faces crease into a smile and they say something like “That woman is incredible”. It is Tarryn’s focused intention about her mission to clean up the waterways and the generosity with which she encourages others along on that journey, that brings people to this conclusion. “We don’t have time to sit around and point fingers…I clean rivers. It’s a popular misconception that it is someone else's job.” In 2018, Tarryn’s life was in a very different place. She was on a mission to end the abusive relationships that had shaped her life, embarking on an introspective journey through prayer and meditation. During one of the workshops that she attended, the facilitator identified that she owed a debt to the ocean and this started her on the journey to the realisation of her responsibility towards the environment, specifically water. In 2019 her twelve-year-old daughter asked her if she could help with a river cleanup project and she jumped at the chance. Tarryn had no idea that this was just the beginning of her healing. On seeing the black, sludgy water she was horrified by the dangerous levels of pollution in the rivers near her home in Centurian, Gauteng. She committed to organising a river cleanup every two weeks and, once she realised that she needed money to do so, she started a not-for-profit company. Over the next few years, extreme weather and Covid 19 distracted from the river clean-up operation, and Tarryn busied herself with emergency flood responses and the sheltering of homeless people during the pandemic. But the Hennops River Revival has continued to grow, and through Tarryns positive determination she now has funding, and a team of 12 people who clean up the river 3 days a week. It’s her ability to bring people together that is so enviable. She has a good relationship with the local government, something that she says comes from not pointing fingers of blame but from offering partnerships and solutions. She also has several big corporates that fund small projects through their CSI initiatives which means that she is single-handedly doing the work of several corporate departments. There is also the acknowledgement that this job will never end and that she will never clean up the Hennops in her lifetime. But that’s all part of being an Actionist for Tarryn, taking on the work for the benefit of future generations. < Previous Item Next Item >

55 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Alfred Mahlole Fighting for justice & infrastructure Alfred Mahlole at the people’s parliament in Thembelihle At 11 years old Alfred found out that the man who was raising him was not his father. He needed a birth certificate for school and he was told that he only had a clinic card because his mother had abandoned him. This started him on a heartbreaking, decade-long journey from statelessness to owning an ID book and being recognised as a South African citizen. This same journey took him to the doors of local councilors, NGOs and finally up in front of a judge who told him that he was a ghost in this country and that he did not exist according to the law. From this experience, he learned everything that he needed to know about activism. He learned to fight for what he needed and he learned that he was going to have to do everything himself if he was going to make any changes in his, or anyone else’s life. “My background was broken, the concrete was cracked. I had this thing in my mind that I do not want to see what happened to me happen to someone else. I know when there is no help what it feels like.” In 2010 Alfred joined the Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC), a group of volunteers living in Thembelihle informal settlement who get together to campaign for positive changes in their community. At the time there was no formal infrastructure for electricity, and the township was using an illegal system of informal wiring that was regularly electrocuting people and killing children. Within 5 years the TCC managed to get a legal electricity infrastructure installed, which was opened by none other than then-President Jacob Zuma. This was an empowering moment for Alfred, giving him the confidence to know that with enough hard work, anything can happen. Working with the TCC helped him to realise that he could make a change and so he started to volunteer with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation as a youth club leader. His role is to mentor young people in the community, encouraging them to be more engaged members of society through educational programs and taking them to community events where they can get involved in social, environmental and political issues. “I want to see happiness in people. We have suffered a lot. When I see people smiling, and happy, I get inspired and I feel connected to them. I’m addicted to being around people and coming up with solutions on how we can make a change, how we can solve a challenge that affects everyone.” Alfred was nominated as an Actionist by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. < Previous Item Next Item >

45 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Sesi Mahlangu Restoring dignity with new school shoes Sesi Mahlangu outside her home in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng The butterfly effect describes how one small action can have considerable repercussions. Sometimes it’s the simple ideas that can make a huge impact on another person’s life. Sesi Mahlangu is on a mission to give young learners new school shoes. This is her simple idea. It is the backbone of her organisation, Dream Foundation. She believes that a decent pair of shoes can give a child dignity and pride, changing the way they see themselves and the way that they engage with others. By ticking off one of the many items on the worry list of young learners in Ekhuruleni, she believes that they will engage in school a little more, be bullied a little less and walk a little taller. She understands that many kids also need uniforms, textbooks, transport and food, but a decent pair of shoes is a start. “My dream is for them to focus on what they need to focus on. Not having shoes to wear should not be their responsibility.” Sesi’s parents died when she was very young and she was raised by her older sister and her husband, who she now refers to as her parents. She grew up in a family that supported her in every way that they could. It was the realisation that other kids at her school could not afford a pair of shoes that inspired Sesi and her friend to save their money and buy a pair for one of their classmates. In 2019, at the age of 21, Sesi started Dream Foundation and launched a social media campaign to collect 59 pairs of shoes for school children in her community. The next year they managed to collect 89 pairs. Each year they will approach a school and ask the teachers to identify learners who do not have the means to buy shoes. As well as the shoe drive, they also run yearly workshops, called “I’m Complete”, for 50 girls. The program helps them to deal with issues related to GBV, self esteem and teenage pregnancy. They have also started a boy’s camp that aims to get young men talking openly about their struggles and steering them in the direction of becoming more meaningful members of society. “I just have this fire in my heart for the youth, a love for the youth. What my parents gave me, that’s the inspiration. The love that they gave me I want to put out to others that didn’t receive what I got.” This year Sesi wants to raise 120 pairs of shoes for learners in Ekhuruleni. Shoes can be bought for between R250-R300 and are needed in sizes 1-5. To donate a pair, please visit The Actionists website for more details. < Previous Item Next Item >

29 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Tiny Dhlamini Detoxifying Snake Park's mine dumps Tiny Dhlamini in Snake Park As you approach Snake Park, the waste dumps created by the long-closed gold mines, rise up behind a sea of small houses and shacks. The closer you get, the dustier the air becomes and as you walk past the yards that house goats, chickens and geese, your shoes begin to fill with sand. Walk even further and the sand begins to change colour. Clusters of red start to appear, some dark grey and, eventually, you will notice tinges of green. These are the remnants of heavy metals, left over from decades of mining the land for gold. The sand that blows into the community below, and fills the lungs of every inhabitant, is toxic. It contains the same metals that seep into the ground and contaminate the water and soil, including iron, lead, copper, sulphur and uranium. Research conducted in 2017 by Bench Marks Foundation concluded that the toxic dust is responsible for hundreds of cases of asthma, severe coughing and children born with mental and physical defects. In Johannesburg alone, there are around 240 of these dumps. For thousands of people living downwind from them, it is something that they have learned to live with, a fate that they have had to accept. But there is hope… Tiny Dhlamini is on a mission to rehabilitate the abandoned mine dumps. The areas are vast but Tiny has more than a passion for change, she has a plan. “I want to see the people of Snake Park living right, in a clean environment where there are no impacts from the mines.” Through her work with the Benchmark Foundation, she has learned that sunflowers, bamboo and hibiscus cannabinus plants will clean up the soil. They will detoxify the sand through their roots, whilst simultaneously creating a barrier to stop it from blowing across the neighbouring communities. It’s a simple solution but difficult to implement because, to do so, they really need the collaboration of the government and the support of the gold mines. Tiny works tirelessly campaigning to raise awareness about the issues in Snake Park, engaging authorities and keeping the voices of the community in the minds of the people in power. It’s not just a matter of justice, it’s a labour of love for a community where she doesn’t even live. “I’ve got immense respect for Tiny. She doesn’t have to do it and she doesn't get rewarded. It’s just sheer dedication.” - David Van Wyk, Bench Marks Foundation. Tiny has started a Co-Op called Bambanani (hold each other), with members of the Snake Park community. Together they are looking for ways to source bamboo seeds and a tractor so they can get planting. Working alongside geologists to monitor the chemical density in the land, her dream is to blanket the area in bamboo so that not only will it clean the soil and stop the dust from blowing across the townships below, but will also provide a building resource for the residents. In time she hopes that Snake Park could become a bamboo city, a tourist attraction and an example of rehabilitation. It’s a big dream, but If she succeeds, her hard work could provide clean air and water for generations to come. < Previous Item Next Item >

4 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Colin Northmore Filling classrooms to tackle xenophobia Colin Northmore at his offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg Sacred Heart College is a school that sits between two very different socio-economic areas of Johannesburg. On the one side is Houghton, a quiet, affluent, middle-class suburb and on the other lies Yeoville, a bustling community that is home to many asylum seekers and refugees. In 2004, Colin Northmore created Three2Six, an educational programme that enabled undocumented refugee children to get the basic education and qualifications needed to legitimately enrol in high school. As the head teacher at Sacred Heart, Colin used his position and the school's facilities to build a bridging educational programme that would provide opportunities and stability to kids who had already experienced so much upheaval in their short lives. “Sacred Heart is on the border of two worlds, we can’t just serve one side of the street.” Colin grew up in a typical white, blue-collar family in Springs. His father was a fitter and turner in the mines and the family lived a regular apartheid-era life, shielded from the cruelty and with little racial interaction. After completing his degree in education from Wits, Colin served as an officer in the SADF before embarking on a career as an English teacher in government schools. It was from his father-in-law that Colin’s passion for social justice was ignited. As the secretary general of the South African Council of Churches, John Rees was persecuted by the Nationalist Government for his dedicated work with oppressed communities. There came a point where he had to stop keeping records of his work as the security forces would raid his offices in an attempt to trace the people he was helping. An event that would echo through Colin’s own work many years later. Sacred Heart College is a Marist Brother's school which, during apartheid, was one of the only schools to defy the government by becoming multi-cultural after the 1976 Soweto riots. By 2003 the school had started to lose its momentum as an institute on the frontline of social justice, so Colin decided to steer Sacred Heart in a new direction. He realised that there were refugee teachers who were unable to teach, and refugee children who were unable to learn; all living within walking distance of well-equipped classrooms that were sitting empty in the afternoons. “It all came together in my mind that the way Sacred Heart and I could make a contribution was in tackling xenophobia in our society by using the empty classes in the afternoons.” Three2Six focused on three things; providing education, food (because you cannot learn when you are hungry) and a school uniform that resembled those of the main school so that they were seen as fellow students and not outsiders. It didn’t come without its challenges, however. Towards the fifth year of the project, a law started to make its way through parliament that posed a real risk to the refugee communities. The law would enable police to raid the Three2Six offices in order to get information on refugees. So, like his father-in-law many years before, Colin was forced into the removal of physical records, putting everything on to an encrypted digital platform with a donor putting money aside to defend him if he was prosecuted. Three2Six was a great success over the years, seeing dozens of students come in with no documents and little education, and leaving to become integrated into the formal education system. It’s a testament to the quality of the programme and the values instilled in the students that many of them returned to volunteer their time to the next generation of learners. “I am proud and humbled to have originated the idea, but the teachers and funders were the real hands and the hearts of Three2Six.” Colin Northmore left Sacred Heart College in 2017 to run an online school called Evolve that focuses on unique and innovative learning experiences. The Three2Six project is still functioning and administered by Sacred Heart College but it is now hosted by a new school, Dominican Convent, where it offers a full curriculum, integrated with local students in the same classroom. Three2Six has continued to thrive since Colin left and has recently moved its entire operations to the Dominican Convent School. For a detailed understanding of the programme visit www.three2six.co.za . < Previous Item Next Item >

75 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Norma Mbele Standing alongside victims of GBV Norma Mbele surrounded by her crime scene activism props As with so many Actionists, Norma Mbele found her calling through her own traumatic experience. Whilst staying in a women's shelter, as a survivor of a rape for which she never got justice, she experienced the way that many women are treated while seeking protection from the perpetrator. The long ordeal of getting justice for gender-based violence is a lonely and isolating experience that Norma vowed she would not let other women go through alone. So she started the NGO Tosunga Baninga. Tosunga Baninga is a Lingala phrase from the DRC that means ‘helping you to help others’. As a passionate believer in diversity, it was important for Norma to name the organisation with a phrase that was not from one of the South African languages. She wanted it to reflect the positive cultural diversity which she experiences in her community and which she seeks to promote through her work. Tosunga Baninga is a Gender-Based Violence support organisation. Their mission is to assist the victims of GBV whilst also educating the broader community. Their approach, however, is slightly different than you might imagine… When Norma left the shelter she committed to helping other women who were victims of gender-based violence. She had no idea how she was going to achieve her goal, but she was steadfast in the conviction that such a lonely road to justice needs support. From visiting the court proceedings she observed that the perpetrators often had many more supporters in the courtroom than the victims and she watched as, on multiple occasions, the authorities treated the perpetrators more kindly than the victims. Norma started to turn up at the trials holding hand-written cardboard signs outside the courthouse containing generic messages of support for the victims. As the trials progressed, she started to include quotes from the court proceedings in her messaging. In time, her team began sitting inside the courtroom wearing t-shirts with quotes from the previous day's proceedings on them, making it clear that every word was being heard and noted by the victim’s support team. When it became clear that these techniques were having an impact Norma started experimenting with even more powerful ideas. What began as a need to show solidarity and to prove that supporters were watching and ready to hold the authorities accountable, quickly evolved into a very powerful form of visual activism. In 2018 Tosunga Baninga recreated their first crime scene outside a court. They wanted to raise public awareness of the crimes and, more importantly, to force a sense of accountability and shame onto the perpetrators and their supporters as they entered and left the courthouse. Working with the full consent of the victim's families, they use “bodies” under blankets, crime scene tape, props and clothing to stage the scenes informed by the details that were available about the crime. “The first one was Nomatjala in 2018 on the street outside the court of Sebokeng. Her mother had never seen her body at the scene. We recreated it and the mother almost collapsed. We started at 7.30 am so that everyone going to work would see it. It was a way for the mother to get closure. She walked into the court with anger and sat on the front row for the first time.” They also “carry the bruises and the scars of the victims”, often sitting in the courtroom with bullet wounds and bruises painted on them in the positions of the original injuries. “We are in solidarity with all women who have been assaulted and are covering bruises under their makeup. We are carrying these bruises so that other women are not alone. I walked the journey alone and I made the promise that no other woman would walk the journey alone. “ Although Norma has nearly been killed, her home shot at and her windowsill smudged with blood, she is not going to back down. She knows that there are voices that she needs to make heard and memories that she needs to keep alive for justice to be served. “Sometimes you fear for your life but, at the same time, you cannot walk away. In this country, whether you fight or don't fight the statistic of women being killed is very high. It’s better for women to make noise and fight. “ This story was created in partnership with Heinrich Böll Foundation < Previous Item Next Item >

52 The Actionists About Partner With Us Contact Us FAQ ____________________ Thom Pierce Studios Menu Close Sipho & Bianca Mabusela Greening futures with trees & gardens Sipho and Bianca on their home farm in Meyerton, Gauteng In 2018, Sipho and Bianca both attended the One Young World summit in The Hague, a gathering of young leaders from around the world. They did not know each other but had each been nominated for the event by their employers. They were both lucky enough to work for large multinational companies that were willing to invest in the young people who they employed, giving them the platform, at work, to explore their passion for positive change. The Hague is where they met and where they decided that, when they got home to South Africa, they would start an organisation to deal with waste management, food security and environmental sustainability. Starting with cleanups, tree planting and food gardens, they went to communities to find areas that needed regenerating and schools with the capacity for food gardens. The weekends were spent planting and cleaning, and the weekdays were spent at the office. The idea was never to plant and leave, they wanted to teach long-term habits around sustainability, and food resilience; habits that would eventually leave the community with a sense of agency in their futures. Up until now, they have planted over 3000 trees and around 20 vegetable gardens at schools, creches and churches throughout Gauteng, one of which feeds up to 80 schoolchildren a day. But while the food is important, they also believe that a garden transforms the space and the community around it, providing a living example to the next generation. In 2020 Bianca and Sipho moved to Springs to start their own farm, a place where they could be self-sustainable whilst also teaching basic principles of sustainability to the community around them. Actionism comes with all sorts of challenges and for Bianca and Sipho it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Due to issues outside of their control, the Springs farm folded and they had to move to a new location in Meyerton where they are rebuilding the dream of providing an educational space for people to learn about organic farming. On Saturdays, from their home, they provide on-farm training in a variety of skills related to food security, including composting, bee keeping and farming organic vegetables. They also offer an ongoing volunteering programme for people to come and learn as they get hands on experience. Six years after they first met, on the other side of the world, connecting over the shared dream of creating a more responsible and self-sustainable society back home, Sipho and Bianca have never lost sight of that goal. Now married and with a young daughter, they have a new incentive to keep their values at the forefront of their approach. An approach which is grounded in the importance of learning new skills and then passing them on to others. Find out more on their Instagram: @khuthazafoundation or email for more information: embofarmstead@gmail.com . < Previous Item Next Item >