- A group of women from Hanover Park, Steenberg, Bonteheuwel, and Mitchells Plain participated in a weekend retreat aimed at building sisterhood and offering a break from their daily challenges.
- The event included discussions on abuse, a modelling competition, and a royal winter ball, helping women feel valued and empowered.
- Organised by Broken Crayons Still Colour, the retreat provided a safe space for women to share their experiences and find healing.
It is not often that women get the opportunity to switch off from the societal responsibilities placed on them.
But, for a group of women from Hanover Park, Steenberg, Bonteheuwel and the greater Mitchells Plain, a weekend away gave them an opportunity to build the bonds of sisterhood.
Hosted by Tafelsig-based organisation Broken Crayons Still Colour at the Blue Waters Resort in Strandfontein from Tuesday 6 to Friday 9 August, the 60 women were offered the opportunity to break away from their households, concerns and responsibilities in a bid to heal and restore those who may be “gracefully broken”.
Organisation founder Ursula Peters says while they extended the invitation to their own “broken women” participating in their programmes, they also put the word out through various channels to encourage anyone who felt they may benefit from this to join free of charge.
Any broken woman
“So many of our women daily sit in the house and they sit with challenges. And sometimes, we feel like enough is enough but we can’t do anything about it. We can’t go anywhere, we just sit with our challenges. We sit with the abuse, and we feel we want to give up,” says Peters.
“The women feel so relaxed, because they can sit without the abuse, without the mommy, mommy, mommy. They can sit in complete relaxation. They can even cry their hearts out.”
Peters says with the women feeling completely at ease, they were able to open up to one another.
“Sometimes as women, we think we are alone. We are just there to clean and cook and care for the children.
“We take the abuse, we feel there is no way out. We don’t even get dressed anymore, or shower or brush our hair. We feel stuck. Here, the women told their stories and could relate to each other. They could see they were not alone,” says Peters.
“Through the discussions of generational abuse, a woman also realised her own perpetuating of the cycle with her children.
“She said to me that when I spoke, I spoke to her. She said she told her own son that she resented him, a 15-year-old boy. But after our discussion, she is going back to ask for forgiveness,” says Peters. “We had a lady in here crying, saying she didn’t want to live anymore because she didn’t see the purpose of her being here. Because nobody sees to her, nobody has time, nobody loves her.”
The opening programme included an event called “gracefully broken” on night one, followed by a modelling competition on day two and a royal winter ball on night three, calling on women to dress up in shades of blue and white for the occasion.
The modelling competition was judged by a surprise guest, musician Vicky Sampson.
“I am a woman and I know the importance of having women lean on one another. I have had women throughout my life – including my mom and my aunts – being there for me and each other,” she says. “We have such a huge job to do, not only as mothers, daughters and sisters but as leaders, businesswomen and visionaries. I believe in what this organisation is doing to promote this.”
Peters says they chose to host the modelling competition to encourage the women to break out of the everyday.
“Women don’t feel worthy anymore. Women feel that they are just here for a job, a daily job, to clean, see to the kids, see to the washing, and there we go. Every day, just over and over. So through this modelling show, we are encouraging women, we are motivating them that they are beautiful, they have a purpose in life as an individual, not as a mother, not as a wife, but as an individual.”
Feeling good
Maureen Maarman, who suffered a stroke six years ago, was one of the participants in the modelling competition.
Still, with limited use of her left leg and arm, she says she wanted to show people that despite her condition, she could still dress up and show up.
“The week and programme were really so far so good. I’m so excited about this modelling competition. It makes me feel good. Even though I’m in this condition, it makes me feel really good. The process of getting dolled up today, putting on a sparkly dress and the hair and the makeup is outside of the norm for me, but I am so blessed and so glad I am here,” she says.
“A lot of people feel down and out in this condition, but this makes me feel special. They can do it. They don’t need to sit and feel sorry for themselves.”
With the use of a crutch, in a shimmering blue dress, with her own stylist and make-up artist, this showed others that they can get up and not feel sorry for themselves, she says.
Nasheefah Roman, one of four women from the Kapteinsklip informal settlement in Tafelsig says she participated to show everyone that they are more than just from a “squatter camp”.
“A squatter camp, that is how people see it. I wanted to represent that just because we live on a field, it doesn’t mean we look like the field. Maybe some people behave like it, but we have potential,” she says.
This was their third such camp, but Peters says they hope to facilitate a men’s camp in the future facilitated by men, but organised by the organisation.
“I think this programme is needed in our so our society,” she says.
