Social Justice Activism and Self-Care

The Forum, a workshops and seminars initiative, hosted Kanyisa Ntombini a 23-year old Engineering student and disability activist from the Eastern Cape. As an ardent social justice activist here at the University of Cape Town (UCT), she held a seminar titled Social Justice Activism and Self-Care.

Kanyisa, who is passionate about highlighting the intersections of race, class, ability, environment, and gender, shared her experiences as a disability justice activist and the fight for disability justice at UCT more broadly. She led a frank discussion on what disability justice activists have to endure, the toll social justice work takes on the mind and the body, and offered methods of self-care that she has implemented in both in her social justice work and everyday life.

The audience praised her work and one audience member thank CG for providing a platform for disability issues and strategies within the context of UCT. One take-away message from Kanyisa’s discussion was when she said that “[we] should not celebrate people adversity, we should focus on removing it. When we do our activism from a place of inner peace, we can do much more”.