Development and its secrecy

Developement is about a situation, you can analyse it and you should be able to address it through strategic resolutions......but take note its a process, you always have to review given the progress status.....
I for one worked with a number of different diverse stakeholders, often the goal was development and empowerment,and change of attitudes.... majority of the time would be based on that .....yes development.....but as time goes on as you learn the tricks, routes.....based of fragmented leadership.....the end point becomes disempowerment.

I often say, I did not experience apartheid with my eyes open (I mean physically) but psychologically adn emotionally I did, when my grands would tell me that your mother will carry me, my brother and sister running away from what is now called human rights violations.......my family history has been distroyed, destroyed by lack of documenting who did what,how and where, just because they were not in exile and it is not classified as the black struggle and history......I do think the only way to make it her story is by documenting it while she (my granny) is still alive....dont worry I will do it this time....

She told me stories about her arrest, my mothers arrest, her friends arrest......and list go on and on....but only those captured by camera and pictures form part of history......worse they are now political leaders or form part of memorial stands (with all due respect).........anyway this is another story for next time...

I have realised one thing now, and not because I am studying BA degree with specialization in Development Studies, but because of experience....Grew up in Pretoria, learned many lessons there and had a taste of the globe (travelling EAST, WEST, NORTH and SOUTH's of the world). but still working in the Gauteng region... Leadership I still repeat.......according to me is a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task........but hhhhmmm go tsamaya ke go bona ......I have seen enough already....and to be honest, it leaves me confused sometimes. I then think about whether I should focus on different things or should I just hold on........then I thought agghh its a learning curve.......I continue with my learning and passion of course.....

Because in this field, you dont work on your own, you work with people, yes people we all make mistakes same people who are your superior, subordinates and so forth but given lack of communication, lack of strategic leadership this initiate secrecy (hidden, concealed and so forth).......and let me tell you sometimes its all up in the mind........if you communicate your likes and dislikes to someone it actually improves your skills.....but from what I have seen and heard, people in leadership and management failing to address an issue.........they leave in fear.......not because they are under attack......no because thats what they think.......and starts with delusive thoughts, comes secrecy, and then disempowerment.....and destroys peoples lives just like that .....I am tasting the waters now or should I say I am drinking it now......been there.....and I am doing it again.....(well let me say it that someone else is doing it to me again)........I am giving you the end point now......and this is about (MISUSE of) POWER

Then you ask yourself where to from here.......hey your life is not yet destroyed.....pick up those little glasses...I think its important to re-FOCUS, development is not bad actually its good for anyone no....for everybody, and secrecy is not always a bad thing (only ethics matter and only when is it confidential) but if its the abovementioned secrecy......you are MAD, what happened to your humanity.....the least you could do is communicate its hard we understand, retrench, failure, your failure, bankrupt, and so forth communicate and most welcomed point IN TIME......

Easy dont compromise yourself, your fellow human beings or anyone/thing. Honesty and Respect is a valuable principle....but it start with self......way your option DEVELOP, dont allow to be DISEMPOWERED........goodluck people....leason learned!!!

The ROSE has THORNS

I light this candle

And say a prayer;

I light this candle Because we were not there,

(I'm sorry)

Zoliswa, Zoliswa; your flame alight

Zoliswa, Zoliswa; we lost you to this fight

On a bed of roses you were forced to lie

And it's on this bed of thorns,

Silently, and violently

they watched you die.

Quietly your father stood,

at the back door Watching in fear;

Saying he could do no more,

To stop the fists of rage

From pounding you into the floor.

His ignorance sealed your coffin

Into another gaping hate sore

love is patient

love is kind

it is not easily angered

and it is not blind

it has no fear,

it always protects and

its always near

twenty against one

forty feet kicking

twenty men against one woman,

forty fists punching

twenty straight men against one lesbian

twenty bodies of ignorance versus one body of understanding

silence;

an accomplice to this crime

apathy;

co-conspirators to this atrocity

forty legs kicking without opposition

is a community of legs kicking

and by this I mean

the township, as it currently stands,

is no place for gays and lesbians.

And no place for this kind of love.

Posted by Vanessa to MOVEMENT INSTEAD OF JUDGEMENT at 25/4/07 4:30 PM

Acknowledged by Mmapaseka "Steve" Letsike

PASSIONS NOT PROBLEMS!

I wonder how many people think about what they need in life. You grow up having passion and thinking that it will come true, but not thinking how will you make it work. I believe it’s about hope, faith, wisdom and so on and on, we get to meet, inspiring people (celebrities and role models) and think that they have made it through, but do we ever ask them how did they get to that point? All we say is they are lucky to be there, and at this point of moment, life is too short, you have to make something out of it. I honestly think that when the day comes, the last day to say my goodbye’s, I would definitely leave a mark, a good mark that the baby dykes will follow my steps, and for that I assume and I know that will happen, jip with the help of God.

People always talk about problems, not necessary having to think about solutions and for that you will have passion to solve that problem. Problems are just little issues that needs to be resolved. And they need attention to b addressed, just don’t let it slide, because at the end you will regret that “why” and sometimes it is too late. I have a passion and that passion won’t create a problem, just a way forward to what I want and the rest will follow, I am one kind of person that will dig down and understand the problem and analyze it, then solve it, it either my way or the high way. I am a patient person, but sometime being patient sucks, you just have to go your way and get what you need.

Talking about majorities and minorities is like heterosexuals and homosexuals. We homosexual we always become target to other people, we become statistic to the others, why I don’t know, we end up being named, sketched, summarized, shaped and created as a frame work and the out comes of that is becoming a figure so that someone could earn and to be recognized. And what about us, I believe with every passion that we have, and trying by all means to get to where we want to be we can make it. We do not need to be problems nor to create problems for other people, but We only want live our passions.

LIVE YOUR LIFE, DON’T WORRY ABOUT TOMORROW

Why us the lesbos?

March 3, 2006: The vicious murder of Zoliswa Nkonyana, a lesbian killed by a mob in a Cape Flats township, points to the brutal reality that despite constitutional protections, lesbians in South Africa continue to experience egregious assaults on their human rights, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch called on the South African government to ensure that their ongoing investigation of the murder is thorough, effective, and capable of leading to the successful identification, prosecution, and punishment of all those responsible. According to local media reports, six young men have been arrested and charged with murder. Human Rights Watch also called on the authorities to provide police protection to Nkonyana’s friends and to other lesbians who are at risk of violence in the wake of the attack.
Nkonyana, a 19-year old lesbian from the Khayelitsha township near Cape Town, was walking near her home February 4 with a lesbian friend. The friend said they were confronted by a schoolgirl who taunted them for being “tomboys” who “wanted to be raped.” A mob of young men gathered around them. Nkonyana’s friend ran away, but the mob caught Nkonyana. They beat her with golf clubs, threw bricks at her, and stabbed her. She died in the hospital shortly thereafter.
“Lesbians in South Africa face abuse and violence simply for not fitting social expectations of how women should look and act,” said Jessica Stern, researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program. “Ten years ago, South Africa enacted the world’s first constitution to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Today it’s both tragic and telling that Zoliswa Nkonyana still could not be safe in her own neighborhood.”
The friend of Zoliswa who fled the attack has been in hiding, fearing for her life. A photograph of Nkonyana and three other women was published in the South African weekly newspaper The Sunday Times. Those friends are now also at risk of violence.
In 1996, South Africa became the first country to include sexual orientation in its constitution as a status protected from discrimination. Significant legal progress has followed, including the Constitutional Court’s decision on December 1 to open full marriage rights to same-sex couples. However, amid a crisis of expanding violent crime and sexual assault of women, evidence suggests that lesbians may be particularly targeted for brutal repression in their families and communities.
In a joint report with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in 2003, Human Rights Watch documented patterns of violent harassment of lesbians and the particular vulnerability of black and mixed-race lesbians in South African townships. The report called on the South African government to undertake public education campaigns on sexual orientation and gender identity, and to create more effective mechanisms to hear complaints and counter discrimination and abuse.
“Zoliswa’s murder tragically shows that violence against lesbians continues,” said Stern. “The South African government must promote equality and diversity through public education to ensure lesbians’ right to security.”
Nkonyana’s funeral was attended by her partner and more than 400 people from the community. The first ever gay pride march in the township of Guguletu outside of Cape Town took place February 19 in her honor.

And then we get another death in Johannesburg, of a teen, just a teenager of age 16 years, she was still in matric, and she was used to be known as a champion. It was sad to be in that funeral, mainly seeing the baby dyke's crying and I believe they are asking themselves that where are they going? , I felt that i have seen enough and at a stage that I am in now, and lucky I have survived, she was going some where, she was going to make us proud and now she is gone. I put myself in her shoes, I see myself crying for help, and there is no one, I mean no one, even the family, friends, neighbours and even the dogs. We have sister who go out there and get raped, killed, assaulted and discriminated. I ask myself that why us, where are we going from here? keeping quite wont help, nor speaking wont help, but what can we do?. her funeral took place April 21 and I expected a number of lesbian women there, but it was just to little (minorities as always), I also expected support from other organisation and still did not see any (only OUT-LGBT Well being and AIDS Consortium), and we say in solidarity with the women who speak out. I hope that with all the love we say we have, and all the anger we say we have, with all the changes we want to make in our country, we should learn by mistakes, and stand for one another. only God know why us, not only us (lesbian women) but women in general. We should get together and try to take care of ourlives because people are destroying ourlives. Why us?, why cant we be ourselves than to be afraid all the time.

sources: Behind the mask (february 2006)

ODE TO LOST LOVERS

A gentle touch when the troubles of this world humble me,
The secret smile around your eyes,
The flakes of wit deliciously falling from your lips,
The way you softly laugh me to sleep.... I tell myself to remember the heartache, the deceit
I tell myself to remember the betrayal
and the disappointment
I remind my heart of the pain and finger
old scars I count each wound,
taste the bitterness,
remember the madness,
relive the loneliness go through my library of memories for all the reasons why I should move in chariots of anger.... but I have a soul of music,
and all it can feel is the memory of you gently wrapping yourself around me and softly laughing me to sleep.... I have a soul of music,
and all it can feel is the illusion of you and me,
the warmth of our little world, before other people mattered.
I know now that I don't want you back I know now that it was for the best that you left,
that you never really could make me happy,
that I deserved better I know now that I don't love you anymore,
that I feel empty when I hear your name I am wise enough now to dissect the incompatibilities to rationalise my emotions,
to know that I do not have the energy or faith to love again to be disappointed again.... but my soul of music still shivers at the smell of your perfume,
it's an instinctive reaction...I can't help it... still yearns to be softly laughed to sleep and I don't know why but when I see the latest book by your favourite writer,
I find myself snatching it and talking to you aloud in the middle of a crowded bookshop,
even though I have not thought about you for months.... It is the dream that I miss,
the youthful innocence and the hope... the escapism of your arms... now I have the safety of my cynicism,
the lonely comfort of wisdom and it is with a sad,
very old smile that i remember being softly laughed to sleep.

Author : L.C on the 13/02/2007 @ Behind the mask

Falling in love with your life!!!!!!

Ever wondered that life is beautiful? I mean your life as a human being. I sometimes ask myself if people can tell me where to find any love, where for me love is everywhere, family relationship, life time partner maybe considering marriage, parenting relationship, educational relationship meaning loving your book and your career etc…, So I mean everybody needs love, and there is no doubt about that, and the reason I am saying this is to start within.

I started adopting other lives, which it made me another person not myself, and when do you realize that this is not you??? Aaggg…. I went back to my life that was always there, the life that was watching me adopting other lives, I sat for hours searching for the real life that I owned, and there I was scooped out of the other side of my life (which I have just realize that I did own it and never showed it). But I really enjoyed what I have initiated from my life, and then I fell inlove with my life.

I have established the (new) secret of success for my life, whereby I am now emotional intelligent, And now this is the new me which I said movement instead of judgement as the header of my blogspot, Being able to do that meaning it took a lot of courage and I went ahead with the idea. When I am talking about emotional I am not talking about being SAD, I am talking about Patience, Joy, Hope, Trust, Empathy, Perseverance those are the kind of emotions that I have discovered Emotionally, and …………

As I was saying and when I am talking about Intelligence I am talking about work, stress resistance, self control, discipline, enjoying gratification responsibly and understanding the perspectives of others and understanding behavioural norms (what is and not acceptable behaviour). Falling in love with your life means a lot, imagine all the thing you wish to have, you can only get them when you still have hope and not only hope, but working your way to the point that you have realize that you have reached your goal and by then it is when you say I love life.

Life is not only about making money and getting married, life can be about helping other people, demonstrating it all out and becoming an icon for the others and for those who still believe in you, just leave life to be life and fall inlove with it, just become your own leader and lead, respect life and enjoy the fruits of life, I would rather say take care of yourself and life will do the rest (Life will take care of you)

Falling inlove with life makes things better for you will get all the benefit of life, Just make the best of Life 22/01/07-02:26am

These are the hands

The hands that touches,
The hands that works day and night,
The hands that signs, while you can not talk,
The hands that are artistic creative,
These are the hands,

These hands have freedom,
These hands are equal,
These hands depend on one another,
These hands are the legend of the body,
These are the hands,

The hands that justifies,
The hands that handle reciprocal relationship,
The hands that depicts,
The hands that analyses,
These are the hands,

The hands that are always offering,
The hands that locates,
The hands that rubs,
The hands that feels,
The hands those are important,
These are the hands

The hands those are beautiful,
The hands that needs care,
The hands that gives Love,
The hands that cares whole heartedly,
These are the hands’

These hands that worship and adores a woman,
These hands that loves everyday,
These hands that guarantees,
& these hands won’t let your heart break,
These are the hands.

This is 4 my woman, because the day she suggested I write about the hands, she said my hands are important, my hands does a lot of work and need to be taken care of, which I do what is required of me about my hands, Thanks Sthandwa sam for reminding me of what we all have as human beings. These are our hands 21/01/07 07:51am

LITTLE GIRL!!!!!!


As silent as you were born,
You never knew where you were,
You never asked to be there,
Don’t be afraid.

As it took two beings to get you there,
But one pulled you out,
Thank God for the strength that she got,
As you have arrived here,
Don’t be afraid.

Yes, you are here
Yes, you need care
Yes, you are not alone
Yes there is someone watching you
Don’t be afraid.

Oh, you are so tiny that you need to be loved,
Cared for, carried with,
So don’t think you are alone
Don’t be afraid.

Yet you can not see,
Yet you can not walk,
Yet you can not talk,
Yet you can not do thing on your own,
Don’t be afraid.

So accept those who love you, for who you are,
Accept who & what brought you up,
Accept that you are still a little girl,
Don’t be afraid.

Time will come for you to grow,
Time will tell for who you are,
Time will still go on & never stop,
Don’t be afraid.
I apologies if I’m not there,
It was not what I intended to do,
That is why I tell you of time,
Don’t be afraid.

You will definitely understand one day
You will know the truth one day,
You will know of where & who you are
Don’t be afraid.

You are my little girl
You will remain my little girl
You will understand that little girls must be little girls
I love you my little girl
Don’t be afraid.


By: Mmapaseka “Steve” Letsike
31/07/2006



TO MY LITTLE GIRL:
BOTSHELO KIMBERLY LETSIKE

This is the outing right?wrong this is the lesbo's mini pride what ever, Hey they are all from around Gauteng province as a whole. Interesting pips.I like the way lesbian form networking, its simply you wont pass a lesbian woman on the street u know why?because u can feel and see that she is a woman loving another woman, hey that is so great.I thought I did not know lesbian woman but this day I knew them all and they were wonderful, it was all about socializing, planning and fun.

Have a taste of it just go out with lesbian woman and you will see the difference that they are not bad like other people say, myths: ke di bitch, ba rata banyana vela.But they are nice people know that, Like myself I am nice too,ask all the girls that I have dated I am a loving Steve, honest somebody, tolerant sweetheart and always socializing.I do drink but socially.But like I said socialize with Lesbian woman you will see!!!!Peace !!!

ARE WE PROTECTED????

Being a Rape victim

In South African law, rape is defined as: 'Intentional, unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent'.
The organisation POWA(People Opposing Woman Abuse) defines rape as ANY forced or coerced genital contact or sexual penetration.
Being raped may change the way that person feels about themself and other people. Some people feel guilty, some get depressed and angry or suicidal. Being raped is like being killed your emotional, physical and mental health well being. People often feel dirty, unwanted and unloved. Rapists are everywhere, it can be your father, brother, partner, teacher, priest nephew and it can also be a deputy president(so called leaders), after that they get away with that, some are never left to get away with that and it is when justice takes place.
But what happens to an individual that has been raped?. Do you go for counselling and therapy sessions time and again?. Yes, but after that process you still left with the scars. The emotional scars take far longer and are much more difficult to repair.It is often helpful for the rape survivor to get counselling from a professional who can help you deal with your fears and emotions.
There are people who can't speak about what happened to them and I understand how they feel, I also know that they don't like being quite about it, some of them have no choice, some is fear. Imagine being killed because you spoke out!!
Hey people are really rude. All the rapist on earth have no reason for raping people and the is no reason for that.I feel the rapist should stop abusing, hurting and being selfish. They must keep their skins to themselves. The people who raped are left with scars and bad memories for life. I usually hear the phase of 'Forgive and forget'. I can forgive but I can not forget. The other survivors can do both both forgive and forget, but others can't forgive and forget and it usually live them angry and sad.
I hope all the woman and children who have been raped are speaking OUT, and for those who cant speak out hold on tight to boat, we are still in the same boat. No one deserves to be hurt, no one deserves that not you, not me not anyone.
Take care of yourselves for me.

Being Here!!!!!!!

Believe it or not. It's that time of the year again, of being here as a woman, being here as a lesbian woman and as an extrovert. It really means a lot having to think of it.
We are often silent and invisible minority and as a result little is known about our gay life.
Although it is understood that not all women who loves other women refer to themselves as 'lesbians', but for all of us it is fine in anyway you identify yourself.
Let us enjoy all the fruits of life.
Be yourself and be beautiful always!!!!

Thank you!!!!
Mmapaseka "Steve" Letsike.