Rock Girl will host an exhibit at the Heritage Square gallery, Cape Town
Across Africa, girls are fleeing conflict, famine, disease, and sexual violence. They are trafficked and forced into marriage and find themselves hundreds of miles from their homes. Girls are on the move across the continent, but for all the wrong reasons.
In Manenberg, girls dodge bullets on the way to school. They are desperate to run away, to leave the gang violence behind. Many of the girls are dealing with PTSD and secondary trauma. For the last five years, Rock Girl (www.rockgirlsa.org) has given them a safe space where they can experience their curiosity, intelligence, resourcefulness, joy and strength. Yet the gunshots continue.
They need to get away.
Really get away. To see their own country, to experience new ideas and ways of life, sleep under the stars, see elephants for the first time, and to build sisterhood with one another and with girls across South Africa.
From 12-16 June 2015, Rock Girl is taking twelve girls ages 13-16 from Manenberg on Road Trip to the Eastern Cape, and back. The girls will travel in overland vehicle sponsored by Once in Cape Town Youth Hotel and African Travel Co., and meals along the way will be sponsored by Pick n Pay. Cape Town Tourism is assisting with accommodation.
The Rock Girls will interview and photograph girls and women leaders along the way, creating pop-up exhibitions of photographs and audio and film stories in each community. They will meet girls on farms in Montagu, girls from New Brighton and the Ubuntu Fund in Port Elizabeth, and girls who face daunting challenges with sexual violence in Bredasdorp. They will go on a game drive in Oudtshoorn and swim in the Indian Ocean in Sedgefield. On Youth Day, 16 June, Rock Girls on the Road will meet at the Bredasdorp Magistrates court to design a Safe Space bench in memory of Anene Booysens and the other girls who have been murdered in this area.
Upon their return, on Thursday, 18 June, Rock Girl will host an exhibit at the Heritage Square gallery in Cape Town, and train and mentor the next group of girls for our second trip to the Northern Cape in October 2015. Rock Girl on the Road alumni will become certified tour guides and be placed with Cape Town-based travel and tourism outfits.
For these young women, the journey has just begun.