Outreach Foundation

The aims of the Boitumelo Project are to create hope of finding inner healing and facilitate communication within the group of women. The women are mostly unemployed mothers with several dependants. The arts and crafts project is trying to use the arts in a process of growing self worth, that could lead to products that will offer some income to the families, so that they can exercise economic independence.

The collective human response to despair, poverty and illegal trade is to succumb to it on a very nihilistic sense of surrender. People who live in the greater Gauteng area perceive Hillbrow as dangerous. Many families suffer under tyrant partners and woman/child abuse is a reality . Boitumelo offers a safe space and alternatives to create a defense, even if it is just a collective sharing of pain as expressed in this quilt.

Nelson Mandela said that if HIV suffering would have a face, it would be the face of a woman. This reality is played out with all the human tragedy in Hillbrow and most families are affected. HIV lurks like the wicked witch in fairytales of the past but it is the image of the grim reaper that cast its shadows on the buildings in Hillbrow.

During 2004 we started work on a Unisa Project called 'Journey to Peace', celebrating our 10 years of democracy. We were selected together with Inthuthuka Sewing Project in Etwatwa to express our struggles and joys. These embroideries were reworked in the digital domain to create a backdrop for a musical performance by the Unisa choir on the 9/10th of July 2004 at ZK Mathews Hall, Pretoria.