Crossroads
honorary patron and award-winning author Lawrence Hill spent the last week in Swaziland
where he met Crossroads partners and saw first-hand how the Swaziland ActionGroup Against Abuse (SWAGAA), Gone Rural boMake and the Family Life Association
of Swaziland (FLAS) are making an impact.
This trip
wasn’t Lawrence’s first with Crossroads. During the seventies and eighties, he
travelled to Africa three times as a volunteer. It was during his mandate in Mali that he met
a midwife named Aminata, whose strength and perseverance made a distinct
impression on him. Years later, when he needed a name for the main character in
The Book of Negroes, a woman with a strong will and spirit, he knew that she
should be named Aminata. A few years ago, Lawrence and Miranda Hill established
the Aminata Fund, which provides
vital funds to Crossroads programs supporting women and girls in Africa.
Lawrence shared
some photos and few of his first impressions from his trip.
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“Swaziland. One
of the smallest countries in the world, whose people have teeming hearts. It's an honour to come here, as an honorary
patron of Crossroads International, to support in my own small way the
struggles of girls and women to live out their lives free of domestic and
sexual assault, and to concentrate on the things we all long for: peace, love,
close ties to family and community, the pursuit of individual dreams, work, and
at least a modicum of prosperity.”
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| Lawrence Hill with Girls’ Empowerment Club members and Crossroads volunteer Laura Dowling. |
“Here in The Kingdom of Swaziland, there are about one million people in a tiny country
encapsulated by South Africa. Among its chief exports are raw materials:
pineapples and sugar. And among its most needy: girls and women, abused
regularly in a country with the highest HIV / AIDS prevalence rate in the
world. I'm struck by the courage of the
women of SWAGAA and of the girls they help, all committed to what every human
being deserves: the right to live in peace, to follow their passions and get on
with the business of building their lives.”
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| Lawrence with girls from the Ngomane Primary School |
”I visited the Ngomane Primary School in Swaziland
today, and was greeted by a classroom full of about 80 girls singing their
welcome at the top of their lungs. These girls were between the ages of about 6
and 13. Seeing their faces, hearing about their hopes, and watching the dreams
on their faces was all the more striking, knowing that one girl out of three is
sexually abused in this country before she reaches the age of 18. I'm sure each and every one of those children
draws courage from being in a Girls’ Empowerment Club, supported by SWAGAA.”
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| Lawrence leading a writing workshop with Girls’ Club members. |
“First question from the media today: what about
the boys? Why no empowerment clubs for them? SWAGAA does have an initiative in
the works for men, but it seems that each time there is a public discussion
about the needs of girls, someone deflects the conversation and turns it to
boys. Boys do have needs. All humans have needs. But it remains an uphill climb
to convince all people in Swaziland of the crucial need to support girls as they
continue to face domestic violence and sexual assault.” (Caption: Lawrence
leading a writing workshop with Girls’ Club members.)
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“The girls at the Mpala Primary School sang and
danced their hearts out today.”
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| Lawrence Hill at Gone Rural boMake |
Lawrence also
had a chance to meet the women at Gone Rural boMake, the not-for-profit arm of
Gone Rural. With commitment to sustainable social responsibility and Fair Trade
principles, Gone Rural has successfully created a business model that empowers
rural women by providing them with home based income and skills training.
