Ambassador of dreams: one young woman represents a new generation of girls finding their voices

A love for art, the influence of a musician mentor, a thirst for political expression and finally, her role as an ambassador of DREAMS kept this young women’s thoughts off a lifetime of abuse and firmly focused on the future.

SPECIAL REPORT | BIRD AGENCY | “Where I grew up, no one asks a girl, ‘what do you want to be?’” said 19-year-old Boitumelo Kgame.

The University of Cape Town dorm room in which Kgame was seated revealed an old soul. A bed neatly made, a music corner with a violin leaning against a wall and, above a music stand, Kgame’s favourite album covers taped like family photos to the wall.

Among the album covers was a photo of a man named Bra K, from Soweto. He had taught her how to play the violin, she explained. Bra K had used music to teach self-discipline and to open township kids’ minds to a world of possibilities and their hearts to joy.

But according to Kgame, figures like Bra K were all too rare in a community where many children were raised by relatives or family friends, without fathers and sometimes even without mothers, leaving many open to exploitation.

“So many things are normalized in the community. The whole culture of sugar daddies, older men dating young girls. It’s not okay that people from the township comment on what girls wear or the way you look. So many things have been normalized and no one speaks about it. Even older people that are discriminating the girl child, you are supposed to respect them, greet them, give them that space as older people. You are constantly seeking this idea of safety in the community,” Kgame shared.

In a country striving to address the impact of poverty, education and health inequalities as well as gender-based violence, a generation of girls in communities like the one where Kgame grew up, is learning to make informed choices. That is thanks to a partnership between South Africa’s Department of Basic Education and the U.S. Government’s DREAMS program. The partnership focuses on schools as platforms to improve girls’ leadership skills, well-being, and health, seeking to retain them in school for longer and to open greater future social and economic possibilities for them.

“When DREAMS came to my school, it gave what was happening to me and around me terms to understand things better. Comprehensive sexuality education helped me make sense of things,” Kgame explained. DREAMS, she said, stands for Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe.

In secondary school, Kgame became a DREAMS Ambassador, enabling her to use the skills she was learning to orient herself to her own life and to help others.

“I knew what to do if someone came to me with a problem and so I could have the conversations for others to feel safe and empowered. It made me feel heard, respected, and understood. DREAMS also taught me that my body belongs to me. It taught me about sexual health, things that I wasn’t aware of and that I wasn’t taught at home,” she said.

Above Kgame’s desk, Black artists’ images abound. The art exudes beauty and strength.

“There is a political element to the art. There is a political element to Black bodies too. These are artists who want to show what it means to be Black, that Black art doesn’t always need to be created from a place of pain,” she shared, as the golden light of the afternoon moved through her room.

Amidst the art on Kgame’s wall, there is also language for its elements – colour, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value. These mix with positive thoughts about how to be in the world. One in particular stands out: I deserve to be happy and healthy.

Given her interest in politics, it is not surprising that Boitumelo is studying political science and intends to focus on law.

Yet, there is something in the music and the artists’ renderings on the wall, something powerful that has helped this young woman make meaning of who she is, in a world that has a complicated relationship with how girls are perceived and socialized.

“At a certain age, you realize your body doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to society. People have comments about your body and they take that power from you, of how you perceive yourself. And then your behavior – it isn’t about you. If you don’t act according to community standards, then it’s problematic. You are caged in your own body. I have been socialized like that,” she stated.

Kgame draws a line between what she learned at home and in school versus what she observed in her community.

“My mom took me to all the best schools in Soweto, to give me the best, even though she did not have the best. Growing up without my father, she didn’t want me to think that just because I didn’t have certain things, that somehow I lack something. And, I would see my mom doing all these things, even fulfilling the man’s role taking care of her family. But when I go to the outside world, then it’s like: ‘No, you are a girl. You can’t do certain things,” she disclosed.

Kgame comes from generations of women who defied the social and cultural norms of their day. With limited education, thanks to Apartheid and the Soweto uprising, grandmother and mother scraped together whatever living they could to support their children, expose them to art and music, and push them to engage with and stay in school.

Kgame and her older sister are the first women in their family to attend university. This despite Kgame’s sister being the primary caregiver while their mother worked to support the family.

“As [Boitumelo] grew older, she encountered things in the community. The most important thing DREAMS gave was a way to [give] language [to] her experiences, to say this is wrong, and help herself and her peers understand that,” Kgame’s sister said, speaking from her apartment in Johannesburg.

Kgame’s sister comes across as an older version of the young woman in Cape Town. The sisters share the same beliefs, both reflecting a similar inner strength when they speak, and even having similar mannerisms.

“There have been big changes in the schools. When I was in high school, there was a lot of teenage pregnancy. The people I grew up with, some of them now are deceased because they died of AIDS. There is now this fashion of dreaming for yourself and working towards your dreams. In my time, it was maybe that individual and that individual, and there was not a lot of care about who you were to become tomorrow. But I think USAID and organizations like them are committed to bringing education to township schools and getting young people more exposed to what you can become.”

Kgame’s former teacher, Mogami Unati, now deputy principal at the Curtis Nkondo School of Specialization, agreed.

“There are so many norms and beliefs about the kinds of conversations to have or not have. As teachers we are trained so these conversations become easier. Grannies don’t feel sex is a subject matter for girl children to discuss. We have to intervene to say, let’s try to bridge this and teach them more about sexuality education,” Nkondo said.

“There is teenage pregnancy. There is sexual and gender-based violence in our communities. Even young girls, because of the financial crisis and situation at home, they will date adults. But if we talk to them about this, we can talk about the disadvantages and consequences of engaging in such activities. School is such an important space to open these conversations, to talk to learners about what is happening – including rape – that many families don’t even know about,” Nkondo added.

Schools in the community where Boitumelo and her sister grew up provide a scaffolding that supports adolescent girls, validating their own resilience and counteracting the other voices that invade their world at a critical inflection point in their young lives.

Kgame described growing up in the Zola section of Soweto, where schools didn’t have many material resources. Yet, she emphasized, the “best schools” were those with teachers who looked out for their students and often times played the role of a parental figure. She credited DREAMS with having provided her with the language for key elements of positive social development to help her make sense of the world around her.

Much like art and music, learning about comprehensive sexuality education gave her form, space, and texture to choose positive behaviours and understand health information as a way for her and her peers to achieve safer, healthier patterns of living and being.

“I started to be more inquisitive. I started questioning why the girl child was always at the bottom of the social order. I realized I can be part of people that are catalysts for change, that want to make life easier for others, especially girls. I was drawn to the issue of early pregnancy. I would see miscommunication and misinformation around contraception among girls my age. And there was misinformation about the clinic nearby as well,” she said.

Kgame went a step further.

“I liaised with the clinic and talked with others about sexual issues…but, anything that has to do with the word sex is like a trigger warning in the community I come from. ‘What? Young people talking about sex? You are young, what does this have to do with you!?’ It was really hard. People who are pregnant – they are rejected by society. There is this exclusion. It is like a different kind of exile, they don’t leave a place, and they are no longer part of the community because the community views them differently. As a DREAMS Ambassador, I would talk with the girls and make sure they were in a safe space within the clinic. Once you start talking about certain things, you create safe landing spaces for yourself and others,” she shared.

Kgame participated as a cast member in Life on Madlala Street, a radio drama campaign aimed at teaching learners the values of gender equality and the prevention of gender-based violence.

“DREAMS taught me to put myself out there. Being entrusted with the responsibility of being an ambassador and communicating about sexual gender-based violence and issues of HIV and AIDS – those are not light issues. They affect people globally. And being entrusted to represent people on this platform, I didn’t take it for granted and I still don’t take it for granted. When you live in these spaces, you must speak. At that point, I spoke for my community and the people I represent to say what we need and what we think of the issues affecting us. There is always this misperception that once someone knows more about sexual issues, they have some sort of sexual experience. Why can’t I just be educated about it?”

Kgame talked about changing the system, how critical programs like DREAMS were to her, but also about how much further society still had to go to support adolescent girls and young women in Black communities, in particular. She underscored how this was what had fueled her interest in studying links between gender, politics, and development, at university.

“The situation in our country is such that so many of these learners are being fostered by grannies who don’t know about the information that [DREAMS supported] Life Orientation classes provide. We need to educate these learners more on what is happening in their lives, so they will know what is right or wrong and take informed decisions. This will benefit learners to be safe, in terms of their health, and to also educate their families and other youngsters to know what is needed – for girls, especially – to achieve their dreams if they are safe about their health. Society doesn’t love you, so you need to learn to love and respect yourself,” she concluded.

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SOURCE: Amy West, bird story agency