 Also known as the festival city of the Eastern Cape, Grahamstown is alive with community engagement. Students and residents reflect on Women’s Month, which took place in August, and the student initiatives taken to create awareness surrounding women’s rights.
In Grahamstown, which is predominantly a ‘university town’, activism of almost any kind pumps in the veins of residents and students alike. The cause of Women’s Rights during August, which was the official South African Women’s Month, was no exception.
Rhodes University, which hosts an array of different activism weeks, hosted a fantastic Women’s Week during which talks, shows, exhibitions, protests and marches were held. Many students felt, however, that the efforts to promote awareness surrounding the pertinent issue of women’s rights were not effectively communicated across campus, and reached only a select few. “If activism weeks are well organised, they can definitely make a difference: societies must make an effort to engage with students and make the topic accessible,” says Karabo Mohale, a student at Rhodes and the Vice President of student society SHARC (Students’ HIV/AIDS Resistance Campaign). Daniel Nel, a Fine Arts student, feels that the Rhodes campaigns for women’s rights were not very effective, because they only reached people who were already interested in the issue. Others, such as Tamryn Smit, felt that Women’s Week was too crammed and students were bombarded with too many activities and speeches.
“There are certain ways that you can introduce this issue to people who aren’t necessarily interested in it that inspires them to learn more, and some groups can do that better than others can,” says Tessa Thomas, an English Honours student.
Many felt that Women’s Week raised sufficient awareness amongst Rhodes students and employees, but that it was the wider Grahamstown community that was lacking in information, activities and awareness during Women’s Month. “Rhodes’s campaign for women’s rights was effective, but it did not necessarily reach the right people. It only reached Rhodes students, and nobody in the general Grahamstown community,” says Hannah Kirkaldy, a first-year student. Mlungisi Khambule, a second-year social sciences student, agrees with her. “They deal with issues Rhodes students are already aware of instead of going outside more, within the Grahamstown community – gender-based violence, for instance, occurs more often outside of Rhodes,” he says.
Carol Strodl, a Grahamstown resident, reflects these sentiments. “I almost forgot that Women’s Month was in August – I barely saw anything going on in town and nobody even spoke of it,” she says.
Strodl, who is the store manager of local curio shop “Under the Arch”, feels that Women’s Month and creating awareness surrounding women’s rights is essential and should definitely be paid more attention in the Grahamstown community. “Women are amazing,” she says. “They keep the world going”.
About the author: Kayla is currently a first-year Journalism and Media Studies student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. She is the editor of the Comment & Analysis section of student newspaper Activate and she a writer for the Politics, Business, and Features sections, as well as a sub-editor for the paper. Her other subjects are Economics, English, History and Sociology. She devours books and sees herself as one of the blessed few who actually enjoy working. She is involved with student society SHARC (Student HIV/AIDS Resistance Campaign) at Rhodes and is busy with a course in Peer Education. She loves watching art films and her guilty pleasure is shopping.
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