Ellen Kuzwayo

Nnoseng Ellen Kate Kuzwayo ( born June 29, 1914 in Thaba Nchu, † April 19, 2006 in Soweto, born Nnoseng Ellen Kate Serasengwe ) was a social worker, women's rights activist, writer, actress and politician in South Africa. She was co-founder in 1944 of the ANC Youth League. For their 1985 published autobiography Call Me Woman ( My Life as a German ), she became the first black South African CNA Prize.

Life

Kuzwayo grew up as an only child. Both her ​​grandfather Jeremiah Makgothi as well as her father, Philip S. Mefare were politically oriented. Makgothi was secretary of the South African Native National Congress in the Orange Free State, Mefare active member of the African National Congress ( ANC).

Kuzwayo visited a school that Makgothi had built on his farm in Thaba Patchoa, about 20 kilometers from Tweespruit in the Orange Free State. Then she was trained for three years at Adams College in Amanzimtoti and a year at the Lovedale Institute for teaching at a secondary school. In 1936 she passed her final exam. In 1944, she was next to politicians such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, one of the founders of the ANC Youth League, where she was involved as Secretary. In 1951, she appeared in a supporting role as head of a shebeen in the film adaptation of Alan Paton 's novel Cry the Beloved Country. In 1952 she finished because of the repression of the apartheid government their teaching and trained as a social worker until 1955. From then on she worked in this profession, especially in the women's work. She was also known as Ma K. In 1964, she was Secretary General of the Transvaal section of the YMCA. She was one of 1976/1977 as the only woman to opposition Soweto Committee of Ten and was therefore detained shortly after the school and student uprising five months.

In 1983 they reached at Witwatersrand University, a Higher Diploma in Social Work, in the following year she became the first black South African honorary doctorate from the same university. In 1985, she published her autobiography, My Life, which was awarded the prestigious CNA Prize and appeared in six European languages. In 1990 Sit Up and Listen, a collection of short stories that are written in the style of the oral tradition.

The documentary Tshiamelo - A Place of Goodness (about: " Tshiamelo - a place of good" ) is about the farm in Thaba Patchoa, who had to leave because of the apartheid laws, the family in the 1970s. Kuzwayo plays the lead role,.

In 1994 she was elected as part of the first elections after the end of apartheid for the ANC in Parliament. She was a member of Parliament until 1999. She received another honorary doctorates from the University of Natal (1996) and University of Port Elizabeth.

Kuzwayo had three sons. She was married twice. Her first husband beat her, so she left him. Her second husband was Godfrey Kuzwayo. She died in 2006 at the consequences of their diabetes mellitus.

Works

• The role of the African woman in towns. South African Institute of Race Relations, 1960.
• Call Me Woman. The Women's Press, London, 1985, ISBN 1-879960-09-5. My life. Sub Rosa woman Verlag, Berlin, 1985, ISBN 3-922166-18-0.

Movies

• Tshiamelo - A Place of Goodness. Documentary.