Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, August 2, 1998
Cornia Pretorius

Six years ago, GLENYS VAN HALTER, 50, had only 15 percent eyesight in one eye and none in the other. She went to a specialist who told her he would try to restore her sight but could give her no guarantees. He asked her if she believed in God and she said she did. They prayed.

It was then she promised that, if her operation was a success, she would devote the next 20 years to women in need.

Van Halter had her operation - she now has 65 percent vision in one eye and 90 in the other - and she has kept her promise. For six years she has been the director of the Zizanani Independent Women and Youth Project, based in Fourways, north of Johannesburg, an organisation she founded.

Van Halter is well known to many in the nearby township of Diepsloot, where she trains unemployed women to make a living by using skills such as painting, sewing and quilting.

She also helps township mothers fight child abuse. This has often put her life in danger - she has had death threats from rapists she helped apprehend.

Her work is rooted in her childhood. She said: "I come from an abusive, alcoholic household. I always wanted to help children with the same problems."

With her childhood experiences as a base, she has been able to help many children work through the pain they have endured in abusive families.

When her eyesight was restored, she did not know where to start to fulfil her promise. One day, she went to the Witkoppen School in Fourways, where she began teaching art.

"I noticed the children were drawing inappropriate things - such as a nine-year-old drawing a penis."

She joined up with a local clinic to provide a place where victims could go for help and has worked with nine Diepsloot high schools to fight abuse and help victims.

Van Halter has also helped to open five cr ches as she believes it is one way to get children off the street and away from abusers. She is also involved with two houses of safety for children - one in Randburg and one in Boksburg.

Van Halter wants a library for the area and a place where, through art therapy, traumatised girls can be helped.

"My vision is to get a piece of land in Diepsloot where I can build a big community centre with a number of little huts each housing another project. One with people sewing, one for catering that can provide food. When that is done, we can take tourists there."

Since she was diagnosed HIV-positive eight years ago, PRUDENCE MABELE, 27, has spoken to thousands of people - from Pietersburg to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

This qualified engineer, who lives in Sunnyside, Pretoria, is co-ordinator of the Positive Women's Network and liaison officer for the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS. But she is also active in at least a dozen other AIDS education organisations.

She said: "I thought I would not reach the age of 25. I felt I had to do something with my life while I had time. Yes, I am infected, but it will not stop me. Maybe it had to happen for me to do something about AIDS."

Two weeks ago, she turned 27 and, with an deep inner strength, is fighting myths, discrimination and the silence which surrounds the disease.

Mabele is a living example of a message she gives to people - one can live with HIV and still have dreams and be positive. It is when she tells people at the end of a talk that she is HIV-positive that AIDS suddenly gets a face.

"One of the biggest problems is that people, although aware of the disease, really don't want to believe it," she said.

When she was diagnosed there was little support for people with HIV/AIDS. She has helped change that. In 1994, she was involved in establishing the association. In 1995, she started at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town, working in areas such as Gugulethu.

"Women with HIV don't want to tell their husbands. When their first child dies, their husbands just make them pregnant again. I helped them get support and counselled them on how to deal with it."

When a position for a gender and HIV officer was established in the national Department of Health's directorate for AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, she filled it for a year.

In 1996, she helped start the Positive Women's Network - a support group for women living with AIDS/HIV - and, this year, the Women Alive National Network, of which she is the Gauteng representative.

Mabele visits universities and technikons to speak to students. She also visits staff at companies and those who work on mines, but it has not been easy.

She gets sick. She has lost best friends and met new friends, but the disease will not stop.

"Sometimes I wish it will stop. In the meantime my work never ends. When I am in a taxi or on a train or in a lift Sunday or Monday I have to speak out," she said.

GABISILE KHOZA is 32. She lives in Tembisa on the East Rand in a tiny room barely big enough for a table - this is her office, kitchen and bedroom.

She calls it "the smallest house in the world" and she shares it with her son, Smangaliso, 8, and two other children, aged 14 and 8, for whom she provides shelter.

Khoza is the only member of the Siyazigabisa Youth Project, which she started last year to teach kids about child abuse.

When she was eight, she was a victim of sexual abuse, which nearly destroyed her life. Her childhood ruined, she dropped out of school at the age of 16.

After she lost a job which she had had for seven years, she sat down to rethink the way in which she was living her life.

"I wanted to do something for kids. I did not fully understand what happened to me when I was eight. I cried a lot when I saw the same things happening to children around me. As a mother, I felt it was my responsibility to help protect them from what I had been through."

But she had to start from scratch - she had no income, so she asked friends to pay her rent and buy her food so she could get her project off the ground.

"I did it from my heart - I had no funding. I told myself I was born to do it. Money would come to me and I cannot think of a single day when I went to bed without food - even with two extra children to take care of."

In February last year, she started going to schools. At first, she shared her vision of providing a voice against abuse only with principals and teachers. They supported her and she began spreading her knowledge.

Every Monday to Wednesday she visits seven primary schools. On Fridays she goes to cr ches and on Saturdays she holds workshops for children with problems. In between she visits parents' social clubs to get them involved in helping children and in the past 18 months she has reached about 8 000 children and parents.

Hard pressed for time, there is very little that holds her back - she is also is studying to complete her matric next year.
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