LAND STORIES Bold woman of Bold Point

Production by Lameez Khumalo & Courtney Jeftha
Archive video from TV production “Long Road to Bold Point”, 2009

Ntombisizwe Mafika is deemed the bold woman from Bold Point because of her phenomenal strength and determination. After going through a lifetime of displacement she found the place she could call home in Bold Point, Hogsback. Due to legal implications and personal reasons she can’t live in Bold Point and is not living where she feels her heart belongs. This video explores Ntombisizwe’s heartfelt story.

This film is one of six videos made to illustrate a range of typical Land struggles that people living in the Thyme River catchment in South Africa have experienced during their lifetimes.
A common feature in each of the six participants’ stories is the role and impact of insecure tenure on their own lives, their families and their communities. Although each family now has a ‘secure’ home, many of the participants have moved several times – between farmland, communal land, land owned by employers and as well as absentee landowners.
Despite the right to housing being enshrined in the South African Constitution, 24 years after the advent of democracy, the families have yet to secure formal tenure. Each of the stories highlight aspects of the ongoing struggle to ‘live a good life’ – many gained access to electricity for the first time in late 2017. The films provide a digital record for the young people in each family of how their parents struggled to have a permanent place called home.