Hello and thank you for downloading this witness podcast with me Rebecca

Kessby today we head back to South Africa in the late 1990s when the rural

women's movement was set up with just four members. Now it has more than 50,000 across the

country sharing tips and information about farming and small businesses helping

women to help each other. I've been speaking to the woman who started it

Sizani and Kobani. When we started in 1998 we were not even allowed to speak in a community meeting.

Any man would stand up and say, hey, you a man, we didn't come to listen to you here. It was a taboo in fact. He's speaking in front of the man.

Cizani N Kobani knew from an early age that she was going to break many taboos in her lifetime.

Growing up in rural Quazulu Natal, she was constantly

confronted with how tough life could be for many rural women.

When I was five, six years old, our neighbor, every Friday evening and Saturday, Sunday nights,

she would be screaming and her partner used to beat her up. How did you feel when you heard

that did you understand what was going on? I knew because I could even feel the noise

the boom, boom. Even today when I close my eyes I can still hear those screams and I felt

there was something I could do to assist her, but there's a five-year-old.

I felt I'm too little.

There's nothing I can do about it, but I was just waiting to grow up and be part of the people who are trying to remedy this horrible and traumatic situation.

I was born in a very poor community by the name of Imbubu.

We used to collect water from running rivers.

There was no electricity for energy. We used to search for

firewood and I was the eldest of the five siblings. The family suffered under the apartheid system which favored white people and

which denied basic rights to anyone of color.

...