I live at Matsetsa in Lubombo region and have two sons. I completed my Form 5 at Big Bend high school and now work as a community health care giver. I love to live in peace and being happy. I hate to discriminate others. I love doing handcraft especially embroidery and that’s when I met up with COSPE in Siteki. They loved my work and introduced me to Yebo ArtReach who were looking for twenty women to participate in the Livi laBomake – Womens Voices project in 2014. I was not able to draw or even paint but during the intensive 6 week workshop together with my sisters we learned how to do this. Talking with my other sisters at the workshop I discovered many other single mothers who had been abused and we wanted to come together and be one and speak out and be heard.
Every day in the paper we read that an elderly woman is raped, a child is raped and killed and other horrors and the perpetrator goes out on bail. I used my positive and negative emotions to create art based on my own experiences. I painted about fathers who rape, about useless men who do nothing except hang out at shebeens and are as useful as cabbages. I portrayed women as dung beetles who are on a long harsh journey facing the rubbish thrown at them. During the workshop I was also amazed at my other sisters work, it was an empowering experience for all of us. Later on I was proud to have my work selected by the new US Embassy and I did a special painting for their embassy.
These days I am a home visitor, checking families welfare and helping women to start small businesses and how to save money so that their children do not go to bed without food. Also helping women get birth certificates for their children, encouraging them to know their HIV status and working with social workers and police. In my spare time I do art, it refreshes my mind when I feel stressed. I will be creating new work for the Eswatini NOW exhibition in October.
You can view Zanele’s work online at www.yeboswaziland.com and at Yebo Art Gallery on Mpumalanga Road in Ezulwini.
Artists will find a free resource library and advice at the gallery, art materials also available. Follow on Facebook.com/yebodesigns