Black Sash: An Inspiring Internship Experience (Sarah)

Black Sash women participating in their signature silent protest

When I applied to DukeEngage, and was then accepted, I had no idea where I would be working. I had seen placement options listed on the group profile on the website, but I was unsure as to which would suit my interests best. A few weeks after I was accepted, Karlyn e-mailed me and said that Black Sash had requested to work with me. So, I complied—excited, but still uncertain if that would be better for me than the other sites.

Now, after working at Black Sash for almost a month, there is no doubt that I am in the right place. The work that I do for them aligns exactly with my skills and interests, and is precisely what I hoped to do in Cape Town. I have gotten to write a press release, grammatically and linguistically edit reports that will be used for health care reform, help organize events, and, best of all, to conduct interviews of original Sash members. This interview project that Will and I are working on is intended to honor the contributions made by the original Sash members to the organization, and to record their stories. We have been interviewing women individually, recording the entire interview. We then type up a transcription of the interview and write biographies of each woman that will be uploaded to the Black Sash website. The transcriptions and audio will be archived at the University of Cape Town. Listening to the stories these women have is fascinating; they are some of the most inspiring and courageous people one could ever meet. Typically, Will and I go to their houses to conduct the interviews. So far, they have all lived in beautiful areas of town, so it’s been nice to see more of Cape Town and the surrounding suburbs. Today, the woman we interviewed had bakes us homemade muffins that were delicious. So, it’s been a great way to really get into the community and explore.

On Friday, Will and I went to a tea with the oldest Black Sash members. Everyone in the room was over 80! They meet on the last Friday of every month to discuss current politics and enjoy time together. They took a keen interest to us, and in our project. We were with them for 2 ½ hours and easily could’ve stayed longer. We were able to ask them a lot of questions, and the responses were great because they were all eager to share their stories.

Next week, Will and I were to interview a woman named Lettie Malindi, one of the few black women in the Sash during the early days. However, we learned today that she died over the weekend. That really added a new sense of urgency to the work Will and I are doing. One of the women we interviewed had Alzheimer’s, another had Polio, and many others are very ill and in constant pain.

I am so grateful to Black Sash for providing me with such a wonderful internship experience, I really could not have asked for more!

--Sarah