Bessie Head (1937-1986) was born in a mental hospital in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa to Bessie Emery, a wealthy white woman who had been in a relationship with a black stable-hand who worked for her family. Bessie was adopted by a "Colored" (mixed-race) family. Bessie Amelia Head never knew her real parents. She was educated at a mission school, and received a teaching certificate in 1955. She taught for a few years, but did not like the job, and subsequently chose to work as a journalist for Golden City Post.

She wrote for Drum magazine. In 1960, she married a journalist named Harold Head. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964, and she took her son, Howard to Serowe, Botswana. There she lived for many years in deep poverty. She spent 15 years in a refuge community before she was awarded citizenship. Her three novels and numerous other works were all written in Botswana.

One of her passions was letter-writing; she corresponded with hundreds of people from many countries during her life. At the end she was a famous writer known all around the world. In Botswana, she began writing novels. Her first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), is the story of a political refugee from South Africa who escapes to Botswana after serving time in prison.

Head's best known novel, A Question of Power (1973), is her third. It also revolves around an expatriate in Botswana, but is considerably more autobiographical. The main character, named Elizabeth, has settled in a rural town. Like Head, she is a Colored South African. She is overcome by loneliness in her new home, and she eventually loses her mind.

Head's work is filled with references to the Bible and classical works, as well as
twentieth-century writers such as D. H. Lawrence. She greatly resisted attempts to categorize her writing as "African" or "feminist". Her work is highly individualized, rather than political.

When Bessie Head died in 1986 at the age of forty-nine, she left a legacy of diverse writings including three novels, a volume of short stories, an oral history, a reconstructed history of nineteenth-century southern Africa, and two volumes of collected writings published after her death.

The presidency

Further articles on Bessie Head

• New Internationalist
• Bessie Head
• Bookrags

Dr Sindiwe Magona: author, poet, playwright, story-teller, actor, and inspirational speaker was born in Umtata in 1943. She is better known as Nomabali Sindiwe Magona. She got the name through her stories as she likes to tell and read stories to the people.

Dr. Sindiwe Magona was born in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape. She grew up in a township near Cape Town. She worked as a domestic worker and completed her secondary education by correspondence.  She later graduated from the University of South Africa and earned a graduate degree from Columbia University. Hartwick College (USA) also awarded her a honourary Doctorate in Humane letters. She was also a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow in the non- fiction category. Her first novel was Mother to Mother. In her writings she always remembers the impoverished youth in South Africa.  It is through her personal and political struggles, as a Black South African woman living under apartheid, to achieve racial and gender harmony in South Africa.

Sindiwe's stories are based on the traditional Xhosa storytelling techniques remembered from her early childhood. It is a unique style of writing that encouraged this description from The Washington Post Book World: To My Children's Children. Magona has published two autobiographical books To my Children's Children which she later translated as Kubantwana Babantwana Bam, and Forced to Grow. She has also published two collections of short stories, Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night, Push-Push! and many other stories. She also published a novel, Mother to Mother, which was optioned by Universal Studios for a film on the life of Amy Biehl. Amy Beihl is the American Fulbright scholar who was killed in Guguletu.

In her stories Sindiwe always encourages her audience to take their chances with open eyes. She reveals that blind eye can mislead a person to make wrong decisions that will later come back in life. She always put her failed marriage as an example. At an early age she got married with a man she hardly new. The marriage was disapproved by her parents and she insisted. Her husband abandoned her with three children. She was unable to get a permanent job as a teacher though she had qualifications for teaching. In the apartheid laws married women were not allowed to be bread winners. On the other hand, she acknowledges that risk-taking is an important part of growing up.

Dr. Sindiwe Magona has also published in the New York Times, the International Tribune, the Sunday Times, the Cape Times, and the Cape Argus as well as in numerous magazines. Several of her short stories, essays, and poems have been anthologize. She found that the pen is mightier than the sword. Her writing allows her to challenge or influence public opinion while empowering black youths and especially women for the roles they should play in the new South Africa

Dr. Sindiwe Magona retired from the United Nations' Department of Public Information, New York, where she was based for many years. She has now returned to her homeland and she is living in Cape Town.

Sources:-

• Chidren's litereture
• UWC 

Lee grew up in Crawford, Cape Town, and attended Windsor High School.  After Matric, she did not know what she wanted to study, so she decided to take a gap year to earn some money and think about her future.  Her gap year grew into 5 years spent in sales and marketing.  In that time, she had decided to make her career in the IT sector.  She completed a year-long CISCO course through the College of Cape Town in Crawford. She did the CCNA (CISCO Certified Networking Associate) and ITE (IT Essentials) courses as well as Java, Unix and PNIE (Panduit Network Infrastructure Essentials).

In 2007, she was employed at the CISCO ICT Academy which is based in 44 Wale Street.  This is a satellite campus of the CISCO ICT Academy run by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.  It is a programme being run by CISCO in partnership with the City Of Cape Town IS &T Directorate.

What is Lee doing now?

She works full-time at the CISCO ICT Academy, teaching the IT Essentials evening class, and assisting with practical classes.  Her special interest is in networking rather than programming or hardware and software.  She is passionate about education, wanting to be part of empowering communities through computer literacy initiatives.

Lee's plans for the future

Lee plans to remain in the field of ICT education.  She also wants to study further herself, to obtain an international CISCO qualification.  This will open new horizons to her. 

Women in ICT

It is Interesting to know that the percentage of females in the IT industry is still very low. Lee confirmed that their classes are dominated by men, with female students making up only 5-10% of each class. She would like to bridge the gap between men and women in the IT industry.  Lee is determined to help change the mindset that IT is a career for men only.  She says that anything is possible with an open mind and the will to succeed. She attributes her successes to:

• The influence of her mother and teachers
• Delaying her career choice until she was in a position to make an informed decision

More on the CICSO ICT Academy at 44 Wale Street

This is a satellite campus of the CISCO ICT Academy run by the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.  It is a programme being run by CISCO in partnership with the City Of Cape Town IS & T Directorate.  There is a great shortage of qualified networking specialists in the world.  According to a recent IDT study, there is a demand for 30% more networking specialists than are available.  Should you be interested in pursuing this field of study, find out more by going to:

CISCO 

Or you can write to:

ICT Academy
44 Wale Street
Cape Town
8000
Tel: 021 487 2014
Fax: 021 487 2217