When xenophobic attacks broke out across South Africa in 2008, many were shocked by violence that felt like a violation of the principles of their newly democratic nation. Where Do I Stand? is a window into the lives of seven young people thinking deeply about their actions during and after this violence. They include a Rwandan refugee, a girl wrestling with the reality of foreigners in her township, a boy facing calls of cowardice, a girl whose family sheltered their gardener. Where Do I Stand? captures the optimistic voices of youth carving out their own places in this complex and divided country.
Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the new South Africa chronicles the lives of four young people in Nyanga township outside Cape Town as they work towards their crucial matric exams, which one student calls, “the decider.” While this is the new South Africa, many vestiges of apartheid remain – poverty is entrenched and over half of all young people aged 16 to 25 are unemployed. Testing Hope follows the students as they prepare for the exams which they believe will determine their future. It explores what hangs in the balance if students pass matric and what awaits those who do not. How do they achieve their dreams in a country where so many obstacles remain?
where do i stand?
testing hope: Grade 12 in the new South Africa
schools that work
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trailer | buy this film
| 3 videos
Promotional video for Play Africa, an NGO that is building a world-class children's museum in South Africa. This is one of a series of four videos based on Play Africa's philosophy: Inspiring Children. Strengthening Families. Transforming Communities.
play africa: A Safe Space for Children
Schools That Work is a series that aims to understand the key strategies and elements that are allowing schools in disadvantaged communities across South Africa to have academic success. Each of the 19 schools has its own story and each story illuminates strategies that show why these schools are effective. Like all schools around the country, they have the same goal – to use the power of education to change people’s lives and build active citizens of South Africa.
What makes successful schools, its very unpopular principals and not to always do the popular thing. You can be a friend to everyone and be nice to everyone else, at what cost really. I think as the years go by you learn to be far more subtle. But principals still have to stand on their feet, you see. And many times stand alone. And so if you’re not prepared to do that, to make unpopular decisions, that means the school is going to fail.
-Principal Owen Bridgens
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We want to eradicate poverty in the community that we are serving. We want to make sure that we produce better learners to become better citizens so that the whole mirror about this community is changing. We want to see them living a better life.
– Principal Bonginkosi Maphanga
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You become a great man, you become a great man. This profession is bigger than us. And when those learners are passing, it's like it's your party every day.
-Scara Nkosi
Accounting teacher
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Phumlani Secondary School
Katlehong, Gauteng
Mondale High School
Mitchell’s Plain, Western Cape
Mpumelelo Secondary School
Loskop, KwaZulu-Natal
We are all shaped by the past. Using the story of the Jewish community of the small city of Sighet, Romania, Memory Keepers explores how different generations hold onto memory and continue to experience the tragedy of the Holocaust. When our histories are rooted in trauma, how do we reconcile the need to honor and remember the past, yet free ourselves as we create the future?
memory keepers
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