thoko's story

Men As Partners Workshop, Cape Town, South Africa; July 2005

How did you feel about using digital video as a way to craft and tell your story?

It is such a powerful and easy multi media tool to learn. I just hope I have more opportunities to use the skills.

What do you think is the power of telling stories through this method?

They say one picture can tell a thousand words, and that exactly what the still images used for the digital video did for my story.

Who have you shared your story with? What responses have you received?

I have shared my story in a number of platforms, workshops, seminars, and conferences, including TV in South Africa. I must say all the time I play the story many people are reduced to tears or are touched one way or another. Especially the men.

In what ways has the process of both creating and sharing your digital story contributed to change in you? (if it has ...)

The process has not changed me much but I do feel that it has created a healing path for me. When my story was shown on TV it reached to the people that know, including the rapists, and I had to make a few adjustments in dealing with my family. It also created dialogue between us, and that has helped me shed some of the burden I have been carrying for years.

Do you it's important to connect survivors globally, and how useful is digital storytelling in this?

Yes I think this is important. There is a digital story of a friend, who had been through a similar experience as me. Her story always strikes me, about how similar our experiences were, but how we wanted different support from our families. For instance I hated my rapists and always wished that somehow they will pay for what they did, and she only wanted the rapist to ask her for forgiveness. That touched me and made me look inside of me, and that helped a lot on my healing process.

Is there anything else you'd like to express, about your story, about the process of making it...etc?

I believe that in the case of my workshop, more support should have been given after the making of the stories. Most of us are comfortable with telling our stories, but we can never be prepared for the reaction of people. For the first few weeks after I made the story and shared it with some people, they mostly cried, or you could see it in their eyes that they were deeply touched and saddened. That turned me into a victim again, and I had to regain my survivor spirit.