âBoxing saved my life⌠without boxing I would be deadâ. Thembani Gqeku was telling me about his childhood and his experiences as a young professional boxer. Gqeku started boxing in East London in 1978, when he was nine years old. He had fought 18 professional fights, with five losses and a draw.
Adam Armstrong
News | 6 March 2014
A few years back you wouldnât be seen as an ignorant person in Khayelitsha if you didnât know what fencing is. But that is slowly changing, with the introduction of this unusual sport in the township.
Siyabonga Kalipa
News | 5 March 2014
A Zimbabwean woman, Sandra Chinyanga, is unhappy because her daughter was dropped from the Techno Girl Programme after three years of consistent participation. Now she has been told that her daughter should never have been allowed to join the programme, because she is an immigrant.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 5 March 2014
This slim volume, containing nine essays, is at once ambitious and humble. In their introduction, editors Megan Jones and Jacob Dlamini explain that they tried to capture a variety of deeply personal lived experiences.
Joshua Maserow
News | 5 March 2014
Jam That Session is an initiative that boosts the arts in Cape Town and provides an unconventional environment for musicians to connect with their fans and fellow artists.
Dumisani Dabadini
News | 5 March 2014
Sex workers and sex worker advocates in Durban, Polokwane, Cape Town and Johannesburg took to the streets on Monday to honour International Sex Worker Rightsâ Day. Similar marches were held in cities and towns all over the world. The protesters were calling attention to the human rights abuses suffered by sex workers and demanded legal recognition of sex work as a form of employment.
Marlise Richter
News | 4 March 2014
Ugandaâs brutal new anti-gay law puts Dembe Ainebyona (not her real name) in a difficult situation because she may never see her country of birth again.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 4 March 2014
Last year the health department gazetted changes to the Medicines Act which, over about five years, will require complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) to be registered with the Medicines Control Council (MCC).
Koot Kotze
News | 4 March 2014
On Friday 21 February, the first round of public sittings of the Khayelitsha Commission came to an end. There will be no public sittings until 17 March, when senior SAPS officers will continue to give testimony.
Adam Armstrong
News | 3 March 2014
Capitalism is not dead. But it is severely ill and its chronic contagion is spreading through the economic and social fibres of the world.
Terry Bell
News | 3 March 2014
After dropping Audio 3D in June 2012, âboom bapâ rapper Sizwe âReasonâ Moeketsi simply disappeared from the game.
Zethu Gqola
News | 28 February 2014
Manenberg is a township in the Cape Flats outside Gugulethu. The apartheid government originally created it to relocate Coloured families who had been forcibly removed from their homes. Today it often makes the news because of gang violence.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 28 February 2014
The Eastern Cape Health Department has instructed hospitals to give an untested medicine to patients with tuberculosis. It has not received ethical approval to proceed with this clinical trial. Now it appears the project has been scrapped, apparently after the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) asked the national government to intervene.
GroundUp Staff
News | 28 February 2014
On 24 February 2014, Uganda passed legislation that criminalises homosexuality. Paul Semugoma, a gay Ugandan activist who recently gained temporary residence in South Africa, says that the legislationâs impact will be extensive among all Ugandan society. The legislation, according to Paul, is more about consolidating President Yoweri Museveniâs power ahead of the 2016 Ugandan elections than about dealing with any meaningful social ill.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 27 February 2014
Cape Town Pride 2014 (CTP) takes place from 21 February to 1 March. The annual festival aims to celebrate gay rights in South Africa. This yearâs theme is âuniting cultures in Cape Townâ. However, people from communities around Cape Town have said that they feel CTP excludes them and the serious issues affecting them as gay people.
Jonathan Dockney and GroundUp Staff
News | 27 February 2014