Homophobia Workshop

For the first Shikaya event of 2012 held in January, Karen Murphy, Director of International Programmes from our partner organisation, Facing History and Ourselves, gave a workshop on homophobia. This is a critical issue in South Africa and has been particularly highlighted in the Western Cape with the consistent delays in the trial of the alleged murderers of Zoliswa Nkonyana in 2006 – a 19-year-old woman who was allegedly murdered because she lived openly as a lesbian.

We looked at questions such as: What are the conscious or unconscious attitudes that we are passing on to our learners? What frame of reference does our Constitution provide for us to think about homophobia? How safe are our schools and our classrooms? What role can we as teachers play in closing the gap between the vision of the Constitution and the reality of society?

This workshop provided an opportunity to engage critically with and learn more about these important issues as well as acquire strategies for bringing them into our classroom within the context of the content in the curriculum. Participants were introduced to a range of resources for classroom use.

Teachers Response:

“It was very informative. The workshop gave me so much to think about. I want to work on making my school an intermediate space, a place where we leave our stuff behind and respect our constitution and each other’s rights!”

“It was very useful and challenging. It has provoked me as an adult to be responsible and take a lead.”

“It was useful. We do understand that there are gay and lesbian learners in our schools and we discourage them whereas the constitution safe guards their rights. The duty of teachers is to make our learners respect the constitution. Teachers need to play a role and this workshop will help  me a lot in teaching  learners to be tolerant and respect the rights of others.”

Shikaya has put together  a list of  the resources from our library. These resources are available for all our Facing the Past teachers. The Resource list consists of  Books, Dvd’s, classroom sets as well as teacher guides that can be used in their classrooms.

Click here to access the Resource List

Contact Lauren at our offices on 021 671 7200 for more information on the availability of resource material.

You may also contact Nicola Frick regarding ideas for resources to use.

The letter was published in the letters page of a local Afrikaans newspaper which was where we discovered it. With much coercion, we eventually convinced Arno to allow us to make a short film of his letter so that others, in various ways, would be inspired to action as well. At the end of 2010, Nelson Mandela sat down after lunch with his daughter Zinziwe and his close friend, Ahmed Kathrada, and watched the film of Arno`s letter. We are told that he was moved and wanted to keep a copy of it to watch it again.

Many other South Africans have now joined the movement, writing letters to Madiba that show their commitment to nation-building. View these letters, or write your own, at letterstomandela.org.

Our first speaker, George Hallett, was the official photographer for the TRC. To hear his anecdotes and explanations of his photos was a real privilege, and gave us an intimate glimpse into the Commission’s internal workings.

We were also fortunate enough to have a poetry reading by Ingrid de Kok, who had attended the TRC hearings as a journalist. Participants were given a copy of her anthology, “Seasonal Fires,” upon registration, and many enjoyed reading the poems whilst hearing them. Her poems dealt with powerful themes of guilt and responsibility, but also questions of how to build a reconciled future. Both George and Ingrid were present in the “fluid conversations” which followed, where participants were invited to engage with the speakers on a more informal and personal level. Liza Key, director of the documentary REwind, also attended the fluid conversations.

Philip Miller, composer of the internationally-acclaimed REwind cantata, spoke about the process of creating a living sound memorial, with vocal arranger Mduduzi Mofokeng. Shikaya had been able to offer 450 students and teachers the opportunity to watch the performance at the Baxter Theatre earlier that week, so the discussion was enthused and engaging.
Philip revealed that the name of the cantata arose from the story of Eunice Miya, who found out that her son had been killed when his body was shown on television. When relating this in her testimony she said, “I wish that picture could just rewind.” We were very lucky to have Mrs Miya share her emotional story later in the day.

After Philip and Mduduzi spoke, the musical theme was continued with one of the highlights of the conference: a performance by Vusi Mahlasela, one of the most inspiring African artists of this generation. Some of his songs dealt with the pain of apartheid, whilst others were uplifting, aptly captured the beauty of forgiveness and ubuntu.

The first session of Saturday was held in the Listening Room, which was set up into individual stations with headphones to mirror the experience of the TRC audience. Here participants listened to a 20 minute clip of testimonies, in preparation for the next set of informal conversations with Louis Nel and Abubaker Peterson. They were interpreters at the TRC, and spoke about the personal impact of reporting both the pain of victims and the guilt of perpetrators in the first person.

Perhaps the most intensely moving experience of the conference was the story of Nomonde Calata. She was one of the first to testify at the TRC about the murder of her husband, Fort Calata, one of the Cradock Four. She hopes that by sharing her story she can inspire people to carry on her husband’s legacy, as he was a committed teacher and believed in the power of education.

On the 20th of June 2011, 100 schools across South Africa showed solidarity with refugees, by showing Where Do I Stand? to their students.

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Having worked through the Up2Us Xperience the delegates began to create their own campaigns.They were asked to address the following: “How do you create a campaign which will inspire young people in racially and economically diverse communities to take a stand?”

The campaigns were created around issues close to them and included among others:

Σ-fi-Education for infinity (Education)

Life (make the powerful choice for prevention of alcohol and drug abuse)

Be a child Day (for child abuse)

I am Blue (for abuse against boys and men)

Hungry for Education ( for Education)

In March 2009, a follow-up workshop dealt with the American Civil Rights movement and, more specifically, the efforts to desegregate Little Rock Central High school. Teachers used Facing History and Ourselves resource “Choices in Little Rock” and the Eyes on the Prize DVD series as a catalyst for discussing the roles played by individual and group identities in Little Rock.

This case-study is particularly salient to the Facing the Past approach because it demonstrates that personal choices, individually and collectively, determine the structure of society; and, in addition, that our identities have a fundamental impact on our choices regarding others.

When faced with a moral dilemma, the individuals who make courageous choices are able to do so through an understanding that their decisions can make a genuine difference to society, and teachers in this workshop discussed how this message can best be brought into their classrooms.

Lets teach our learners, through the content, about civic responsibility, and that their choices do matter! (Janine Kaptein)

Below are  some extracts from some of the participants’ journal entries:

“When society is built, the basis upon which society is built would be the choices. Choices have consequences; the consequences would be the creation.”

“It will develop learners to be considerate and concerned about others.”

“The resources and methodology is extremely useful in helping learners to understand the importance of individual choices, even ordinary people can have far reaching consequences.”

One of the most important aspects of a flourishing democracy is an active, tolerant citizen body.

Facing the Past – Transforming Our Future is Shikaya’s core project, in collaboration with Facing History and Ourselves and the Western Cape Education Department, and aims to cultivate students’ awareness of the ways that society is shaped by the choices of individuals, and the role that they can play in the creation of a culture that values human rights, diversity and peace.

By examining case studies from Nazi Germany and apartheid, students are exposed to questions of identity, diversity versus exclusion, apathy versus activism, and are empowered to contribute towards building a more compassionate South Africa. As its content may be adapted for the specific teaching material, the approach is relevant for History, English and Life Orientation classes. By training over 250 teachers in the last eight years, the impact of Facing the Past has reached over 16 000 students.

Facing the Past is based on and supported by the work of Facing History and Ourselves.

In 2008 Shikaya produced History Updated – a series of thirteen filmed lectures by leading South African historians based on what teachers are required to teach. The lectures are hosted by Professor Bill Nasson and include lectures from Professors Nigel Worden, Nigel Penn and Lungisile Ntzebeza.

To order the DVDs or to apply for a sponsored set for your school, contact us.