Where I Became

[Upbeat brass band music] - Come on people, line up on the sides, part the waters!

- (Tandiwe) So we've come back for our 25th reunion.

Being on campus with Nolwandle is absolutely magical because this is where we met, and we've sustained a friendship for 29 years now.

[mellow jazz music] - (Desiree) My journey to Smith was such a fluke.

I went to church with my family on Sunday, and we had a guest preacher.

He was talking about, the international community was really coming together in different ways to support the anti-apartheid movement.

- (Heather) One of the lecturers at the university told me about this university in the US that was accepting two Black South African women per year, and that I should definitely apply.

- (Siphokazi) "Siphokazi is going to America.

I secured a place for her at Smith College, she has passed matric very well.

So she must be at the airport on the 20th of January, 1986."

- (Verna) We're first-generation college goers.

My parents were proud, they were honored - (Vuyiswa) This is an opportunity of a lifetime, and it's up to me to make of it what I should.

- (Tandiwe) I had a desire to go to a women's college, and I think it's a foundation that then empowers its graduates to believe in themselves.

- (Thembekile) I was driven.

You're going to be finally on equal footing with everyone.

- (Thilo) I think I'm a strong woman, but I really think that being at Smith made me, really strong.

- (Thandeka) I learned to own my voice as a girl child, but also as a woman.

- (Chuma) When this decision from Smith came through, it was like a lifeline for me.

So things were looking up already.

- (Kholeka) We had a fantastic African students organization.

We had a wonderful international community.

- (Meagan) The more I had these positive, really positive exposure, the more you realize inequity exists and what that means for someone who doesn't get this access.

- (Nolwandle) It changed the narrative from a system that was meant to keep me, in a certain position and place to being the woman that I am today.

Smith is that place, where I became.

[gentle piano music] - (Tandiwe) So I wasn't born when my parents decided to leave South Africa.

But we had to leave because, they were educators and they really believed in empowering and developing young minds to be the best that they could be, and they couldn't do that under Bantu education.

Not wanting to be part of a system that used education to disempower rather than empower.

[gentle piano music continues] - (Makhosazana) There we were, teaching these subjects.

There were no science subjects.

And somehow we discovered that in this school, there was a room that was not being used.

And my husband discovered that actually it had been the science laboratory, but it was now locked up.

So, we decided to open it and start teaching science subjects.

But the inspectors, you know, got hold of this information, and he was told to stop teaching those science subjects, but to teach the children Afrikaans.

I remember there was a book which they recommended all the time, "Laat die Kinders Praat."

- (Dr.Ellsworth) Everyone had to have separate textbooks.

As if you were Black, you could only read that sort of history.

And if you were Colored you read that sort of history.

If we were Indian you read that kind and if we were white you read that kind, you won't believe it, but it is true.

[solemn jazz music] - (Dr.

Mangaliso) There is a link between private issues and public issues between what we consider to be personal experiences and structural, you know, variables.

It's not random, you know, the patterns that produce these institutions.

And then there's the social construction of these institutions, nothing drops from the sky.

The institutions systems, they're created by human beings.

If you're studying society, you're studying people.

There will be patterns that will emerge, right.

And some of those patterns, they don't just happen overnight, they evolve over time and that's helpful to know, to see the evolution of some of these patterns that end up being problematic.

[gentle piano music] It becomes natural for me to look at apartheid as beginning in 1948, when the Nationalist Party gained ascendancy.

But what the Nationalist Party did was to take racial segregation to its logical conclusion.

Racial segregation was already there when there was the Union of South Africa, when the British ruled.

- (Peter) When the Nationalist Government took power in the 19, late 1940s, they, they formalized all of that.

So there was the whole series of acts, Immorality Acts, so no marriage, no sex between the different races.

There were passes that were brought in.

- (Dr.

Mangaliso) You could be stopped by any police officer to validate your existence in this area, which is part of your country.

Women in everyday life, they had to deal with the impact of apartheid and the indignities that came with that system.

Individuals who did not even have access to good education and good jobs, majority of whom, especially African women, ended up taking jobs as maids.

So you are looking at a people who were affected economically, educationally and politically impacted by apartheid in the same way as men.

Now, you have to think about the whole system of contracting men to the mines, hyper exploited.

You're looking at a significant number, especially of African women who, because of apartheid were left in the position where they had to fend for their families on very meager incomes.

- (Peter) You had to have permits to live in certain areas.

Businesses were encouraged to move their factories and things to be out near where the boundaries of the Bantustans were so that people could live in the Bantustans and just come and work in the white-owned parts of the country.

Hendrik Verwoerd, he came up with this philosophical system to justify, and it was called apartheid.

It was called "separate development."

- (Dr.

Mangaliso) The apartheid regime wanted to portray this image that for South Africa, actually apartheid, was rational, because we are looking at a society with so many different cultural groups, that they actually needed to be separated.

They saw that also as a very good strategy for, you know, divide and rule.

When that didn't work, the rest of the world would not buy it, then tried various strategies.

And one of those strategies was the creation of Bantustans and Homelands.

A Homeland or Bantustan for the Xhosas for the Zulus, for the Sothos, for the Tswanas.

- (Peter) So it became this elaborate system of trying to allocate tribes, supposedly the goal was they would be separate countries in a sort of federal type system.

You've got 87% of the population and you're squeezing them into 13% of the country.

Needless to say that 87% of the country, didn't appreciate it very much.

- (Makhosazana) It was also at a time when Bantu education was being introduced.

The syllabuses were changing.

The system was changing and obviously the system was aimed at reducing, shall I say, the level of education among the Black schools.

And quite a lot of teachers at secondary school level had actually left teaching and just take up a job like being a bus conductor, but this was all out of frustration, you see.

- (Dr.

Mangaliso) Obviously any system where, the majority of the people are oppressed, okay, that always sows the seed of its own destruction.

People never appreciate being dominated and oppressed.

[gentle piano music] So resistance movements had to emerge.

- (Makhosazana) My husband had been an activist, a great activist of the ANC.

So we decided to go to Zambia because we felt that we would be closer to the ANC and would be able to work with them.

O.R.

Tambo used to encourage those of us who could get jobs, to get jobs so that we could be able to assist the movement financially.

We began to see, not only adults, young people, coming to join the struggle.

The ANC felt, "No, young children had to go to school."

- (Tandiwe) Young people were probably the most impacted because Bantu education was specifically designed to disempower, kind of the counterintuitive purpose of education.

Resistance to Bantu education really then brought young people to the fore.

[gentle piano music] - (Desiree) I was a student at the University of Durban-Westville.

It was a period of great intensity regarding violence and anti-apartheid work in South Africa during the mid and late eighties.

And our lives as college students were very embroiled in that.

We were constantly told and reminded, if not drilled, that education is the only way to get out of apartheid.

It was such a consuming, pervasive, oppressive system, that the only way my parents knew of having a better life or having access to more was for us to get educated.

[gentle piano music] I was 12 when we had the first round of big boycotts.

And so the police came, you know, they were trying to chase us out of the school.

And I remember hiding under our desks, just being petrified.

And that journey that we experienced, I think really started since the death of Hector Pieterson in 1976.

When they chose to kill a child, that was when children and young people really decided that we're going to do what we can and we're going to join this movement.

- (Thandeka) We were living during very important days in the history of South Africa.

So we grew to have very strong opinions, views, which sometimes differed from the authority.

- (Protester) An injury to one!

- (Crowd) Is an injury to all!

- (Protester) An injustice to one!

- (Crowd) Is an injustice to all!

- (Protester) A victory for one!

- (Crowd) Is a victory for all!

- (Protester) Freedom!

- (Crowd) Now!

- (Protester) Freedom!

- (Crowd) Now!

- (Thandeka) I was, very much conscious, of the fact that, I come from a war-torn country.

There is a fight for liberation, a fight for independence.

The value that my parents had instilled in me was that we're giving you an education so that you can be independent and autonomous.

So I had a whole community that I held in my conscience to say, "I'm not only doing this for myself, but I'm doing this for my country and for my people."

- (Vuyiswa) I'm a Soweto girl, born and bred, born into a family of lots of teachers.

My mother often tells a story that she had me on her back on that fateful day on the 16th of June, when everything went down.

So Soweto for me is home.

When Soweto uprisings are spoken about, I know a lot of the spots in the areas where things happened, that's where I was born.

[choral music] And the Soweto uprisings, really brought to the fore, the whole issue of youth and youth being unsafe and youth being the ones that have always pushed the envelope, that change the course of history.

- (Danny Dube) During the Soweto uprisings in 1976, this was the only place open, Yet, this was the time when all Black political parties were being barred and some of their leaders were already in prison, but thereafter, the police came to know about it.

So that's why they used to come and surround this church and tell the students with megaphones to disperse within some few minutes.

While if they didn't, they started throwing in tear gas canisters, as well as shooting, as well as from inside the church, which means that they did force their way in and moreover using, live ammunition but nobody was killed in this church.

Of course, there were people got hurt, as you very well know that the first victim in Soweto, was this 13 year, Hector Pieterson.

But thereafter most of the students who died is from '76 until late 1987, which is a period of 11 years.

Now, all their funeral services were held here.

So that's why we did sustain some damages due to the police shootings.

They say, "Regina Mundi is a church of the people."

- (Kholeka) I think during the apartheid era, I was young, young enough to be naive about what was happening in the country.

I think you knew that there were certain things that you couldn't do, but also young enough to just not be bothered by it.

Maybe, not bothered so much, but just, you know, it's okay.

This is how life was and you accepted it for what it was.

I think it was in 1986, '87, when it really hit me how, different we were treated from white people.

When we were told that we couldn't go into a restaurant in KZN, that's when I started thinking about, about apartheid and the effect it had on us.

I grew up with both my parents.

I say that because that is rare for most people.

And especially these days, you find kids who either live with mom or live with dad, but mostly you find single parents.

To date I still live with them.

All they really wanted for myself and my siblings was for us to get an education, which is why when I left Joburg or Johannesburg to go to boarding school in the eighties, after a tear gas landed at my feet, it, it was very hard for them, it was hard for all of us.

- (Alinah Mabuya) Then we tried to apply for boarding school in Durban, she find a space and she went to Durban.

- (Kholeka) My mother called me actually- - (Alinah Mabuya) I nearly called everyday.

[all laughing] - (Kholeka) And how did you feel about me going overseas?

- (Alinah Mabuya) I cried a lot.

- (Kholeka) I didn't know that.

Nah, I didn't know that, yeah.

They spent the last penny that they had to make sure that I, I went to boarding school.

I went to Ohlange high school.

The school was founded by the first ANC leader.

That was John Langalibalele Dube.

[gentle piano music] He was this man who, went overseas and raised funds so that Black kids could have an education.

And I went to that school that he founded.

Nelson Mandela cast his vote in 1994, he went there, so there's the history.

It really makes me proud to, just to have gone to that school.

- (Thilo) The system in South Africa at that time was very much, the schools was very segregated.

So if you were Indian, you went into a school system that just didn't have the resources that other school systems had.

Whether it was about sport, whether it was about the facilities to study or computers, the teachers were not paid as well.

So all of those, made the school system, the Indian school system, definitely less than the white school system in South Africa.

- (Meagan) Identity was defined and constructed by the government, in order to privilege the few.

So at a younger age, you recognize something's wrong.

Then you get a little bit older and you know it's not just that it's wrong, but it's also unfair or inhumane.

And then at a certain point, as you gain better knowledge or hear more conversations and understand on deeper levels, what those conversations mean, now, what I think it awakens awareness, because you cannot destroy someone and treat someone in a manner like that without dehumanizing them.

It did leave multiple generations of people grabbing onto whatever made them a little bit more human or better.

So there are people in these different racial categories, including my own, who would look down on others, right.

Well, we're just a little bit better than you.

We get treated better.

We live differently.

But what people like Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela and the Tutu's of the world do is they help you understand that's a strategy, that is a way of keeping you in line.

- (Dr.

Mangaliso) So Steve Biko started this, you know, sense of pride of being Black and being African and unleashing the ability to overthrow white dominance, you know, just by being yourself, being an African.

- (Meagan) When you have a system where race is what separates you and puts you into a hierarchy, one of the ways you combat that is what you call sort of umbrella advocacy.

So everybody, regardless of where you may differ on the spectrum, you push under the same umbrella to fight the bigger common enemy.

So there are to this day, Indian South Africans, Colored South Africans, African South Africans, I'm speaking in sort of the apartheid lingo now when I'm using racial classifications, who will tell you I'm Black.

It was a political statement to say we are Black, 'cause that is our declaration to the world that we do not believe in apartheid.

It is unfair, it is inhumane, it is a constructed reality for us.

It's not who we are as humans.

[indistinct chatter] [Casspir, army truck revving] [gunshots booming] [screaming] [glass crashing] - (Heather) I grew up on one of the streets in, on the Cape Flats, in Athlone, where much of the struggle took place.

It was Klipfontein Road, Belgravia Road and Thornton Road.

And I grew up on Belgravia Road.

I was born to a father who believed that education was the most important thing.

That was the way to freedom.

Him and my mother put their savings together and put out my brother and I in a private school.

This worked for a little while, but not for long.

Many of the school children had decided liberation before education.

My bus to school, we were the subject of stone throwing by kids who I grew up with.

It created for me a bit of a schizophrenia, because I had to sort of travel through the burning tires and the sight of the struggle.

And then trees got greener.

The plots got wider, and I would arrive in Upper Wynberg.

The school at the time refused to have us talk about what was going on at home, because I think they believed it was too political.

So we never found a way, I feel, to bring all the fragments of ourself into one place and be accepted for that entire experience, which was, which was soul destroying.

My father, who had been watching this brew up in me, understood exactly what had happened, decided to move me to a government school, which was close to where I lived and also on the Cape Flats and there I became very politically active and lived out my life in that way.

It was, it was dangerous and very scary, but I felt at least whole.

(Marchers singing) Oh deep in my heart I do believe That we shall overcome one day - (Thembekile) My peers and people just ahead of us had finally just reached the end of their rope, that it didn't matter to be quiet anymore.

The movements were something that happened in Johannesburg or happened in Cape Town, that took quite a long time to reach Pietermaritzburg, I was actually probably out of high school by the time that, students that is, felt brave enough to, to join the movement.

I wasn't part of it.

And, and most of that was, our parents were absolutely adamant that you don't, you don't stick your neck out there, you don't, because it just invites a lot of, of everything that they were scared of, that the South African government could unleash.

We often went quite hungry, because there wasn't, there wasn't food and then you just learn how to not complain about that.

And so it could be very, a very spare existence.

So the books were really entertainment.

I just was so happy to, escape into a book.

When I was in high school, an American teacher came to teach English and was, unusual in giving us respect and a lot of freedom, unusual that he sat on top of the teacher's desk, instead of like cross-legged, instead of standing there with the, you know, stick.

In those days, as a Black person who lived in the townships, I could not use the library.

But there I was working with these kids, white and Indian and Colored, so I would actually read along with them.

I just need to get as much as possible out of this sort of sideways education that I was getting.

Having an education that I wasn't having in a Bantu education system.

- (Thandeka) Is it education first or freedom first?

And I think more and more young people were saying, "Freedom first" 'cause they didn't want to be subjected to a meaningless education.

And I grew up in Vosloorus, east of Joburg.

It was the hub of a lot of unrest and political activity.

And I think my parents did value education.

So, at that point, they made a decision to take us to boarding schools, a little bit far out from Johannesburg, where we could get some form of education.

- (Nolwandle) Politics were not discussed in the forms of it had to be this robust discussion because we were living politics, the fact that you were denied the basic rights, the fact that you were actually treated differently, you were Black before you were anything else.

I attended rallies, funerals, people who were actually not part, or seen marching were actually questioned as to whether you were working for the system or not.

I was born and raised in Guguletu, a township outside of Cape Town.

Born with uncles and aunts, all living in the same roof.

Family that actually was really involved in the community from a spiritual point of view as well.

They had very limited education, but it was very clear that they'd made the vow that most African parents at the time had made that despite the situation, they will make sure that they put an effort in educating their kids.

What my parents, as well as the teacher and the community at large emphasized that, our success will not come from anything else at the time, but actually liberating ourselves.

That for me, was very important, even at elementary school level.

At high school level, there was the same expectation that you have to do well.

- (Chuma) I think I had an inner confidence that I just had to find and kind of strengthen.

I knew I could do whatever I wanted.

I, you know, the world be damned, I'm gonna do what I need to do for myself.

And I just needed the tools to do it.

So I started out at Inanda Seminary, which was a community of girls helping each other kind of grow up.

Our head mistress basically called us into her office and said, "I'm giving you an assignment that you have to give in, here's your packet, here's your packet, here's your packet, bring it to me."

And I remember thinking, "Oh boy, are we in trouble?

This makes no sense to me, but I'm just gonna fill out this application."

And then I forgot all about it.

And months later, my father calls and said, "I got this telegram from some school in America saying that you need to come to school and you've been accepted."

And I said, "What school?"

I had no idea what had happened.

[gentle piano music] - (Susan Bourque) I've been fortunate to know and work with five presidents of Smith.

I arrived on campus in 1970.

Tom Mendenhall was the president.

We had never had a woman as president until Jill and it set the campus on fire.

It was like an electric current had gone through it.

When we first saw her arrive and be part of the academic procession.

For those of us who were young and feminist, both men and women, we were thrilled, but still thinking what the college might become under this woman who came in as a declared feminist, who said she wanted to make sure that Smith's history and mission could fit the college for the kind of education that women would need.

[gentle music] It was at the same time, a challenging situation for a first timer, if you will, the first woman to lead this institution that had traditionally had a small group of men around the president who felt that they could call the shots, a kind of kitchen cabinet.

And so she met with a lot of resistance to change.

And of course her ideas were very progressive.

I mean, today it is not unusual to hear people talk about the significance of educating women for the social and political development of a nation.

But that simply was not the case in 1975.

It was a struggle to get people to understand the importance of what this might mean in the overall well-being of a nation.

And it was Jill and Mary, who sowed the seeds that we have come to appreciate in what we see in this wonderful college today.

Jill of course, was instrumental in making sure that Jill and Peter de Villiers came to Smith and of course, much valued Peter's advice in all areas of Smith life, most particularly athletics.

He was a great mover and shaker in terms of the athletic program.

And of course his deep engagement in South Africa was critical in the development of what would become the scholarship program.

- (Peter) I was the third child of four.

My father was a influential Presbyterian church minister in Durban, had a big church.

So I grew up as a preacher's kid and all that that means.

I was the designated successor to my father, shall we say.

So there was, something I didn't question very much.

I think growing up, my father was an active white liberal.

He didn't see himself as preaching politics, but he was very involved with Black churches, with Indian churches in the region.

I came to Smith in 1979 with Jill.

We were primarily recruited by Jill Conway.

So in the fall of the first year I was here, I was put on an ad hoc group to organize the recruitment and admission of international students.

And there were very small numbers of international students here.

We established a faculty committee on international students and as the chair of that committee, I served on the board of admission at Smith and Lorna Blake, who was the director of admissions at that time, she and I read all of the international applications.

A number of American universities and colleges established a South African Scholarship Program and distributed Black South African students who did not have access to the white universities in South Africa.

For two years, we were a member of this group, but we didn't get any students.

We looked at who it was that got those scholarships and it was mostly graduate students and men, in technical sciences, computers, et cetera, and they were going to the big universities.

I went to Jill Conway.

It was at a time when she was negotiating with the board about the issue of divestment.

And I don't know what her actual views were about divestment, but as the president, she was negotiating between the faculty and the students with their views and the trustees.

Her pragmatic approach was, let's do something with the money, at least until we make a decision.

She went to the board with that and they decided to establish a South African Scholarship that was a board of trustees scholarship.

They set aside an amount of money, so Jill said to me, "Okay, we've got to go, how do we recruit them?"

And I said, "If you want students right away, my dad can recruit them."

Okay, so in the mid 1980s, he had left his church and was working in the education department in the province of Natal and so he had contacts in the schools.

I wrote to my dad and said, "Smith would like students and we can, we have the scholarship established.

We can take two students this year."

What it was deciding was simply, can they do it?

Are they gonna be able to make it here?

[upbeat music] - (Thembekile) I cannot tell you how excited I was in the, in the days leading up to my departure.

- (Thilo) Thembekile and I were the first South African students, we had a lot of publicity.

One of the things that my dad said to me when I went to boarding school was, "You are representative of the whole Indian community, whether you like it or not."

And that's what this felt like too, representative of my family, of the Indian community being given this an amazing opportunity to excel, to succeed, to open doors for new opportunities.

- (Desiree) My parents were very about even entertaining this thought and it also almost sounded too good to be true.

I was leaving to come to Smith, I'd said my goodbyes to everyone and my dad ran after me and he grabbed me and he held my face between his hands.

And he said, "Are you sure?

Are you sure?"

And I'm like, [imitates crying] "Yeah", because I was so emotional, and he said, "I can't come pick you up next week, So you have to be sure!"

[laughing] - (Verna) I was anxious about flying.

I was distraught over leaving my parents, I had, you know, never left my parents before and I was going to this new country, but I had my sister sitting in the seat next to me, which, which helped a lot.

And I got physically ill, I was passing out, dizzy spells.

When I, when I landed in, in Johannesburg the most, it was so embarrassing, but they actually had the EMT come and take me off the plane.

- (Chuma) I was flying to Boston and they said, "We have an announcement there's a blizzard out on the East Coast, so we cannot land."

So we got rerouted to Toronto.

- (Heather) As soon as I landed, I was fortunate enough that my uncle was there and he took me.

I said, "I just need to go to a place where I can find clothes for cold weather."

And I went and I dressed up and I got ready for going out, out into this, into the snow, to my classes that day, I got fully dressed up and as I left all along campus, I just couldn't understand 'cause everyone was asking me, "Heather, are you going skiing today?"

[interviewer laughing] And I add the full ski outfit on with goggles and the whole thing, because I thought this is how you prepare for very, very cold weather.

- (Chuma) I didn't have a way to contact anybody.

And so I hoped that someone would be there when I landed and Peter was there, so that was very reassuring.

I don't know how he found out, I didn't even ask, I was just happy to see him and they gave me a winter coat.

And so that was really good.

I felt welcome.

It was scary, but it was over.

I was ready to start.

- (Vuyiswa) And my mother, I remember when I left home, the one thing she said to me at the airport, "You want this?

When we get to the airport, you're not gonna cry.

There are no regrets.

You know what you've been taught in this household.

So go there and make it happen."

- (Desiree) The person who got on the plane and was in tears and, you know, reassuring my dad that I'm sure about this.

And then the person who got off the plane in New York, I really believe were almost two different people.

Like I, I felt like I had to do a lot of growing up and have this determination in me that this was going to work out and I was gonna make it happen.

[soft jazz music] - (Thembekile) Having left South Africa when it was around 82F Degrees and arriving at Bradley and it was 15F.

And then it was absolutely just real, that I'm here.

[soft jazz music continues] - (Thilo) Walking from Washburn House, the snow was way above my head, like, I couldn't see, I couldn't see where I was going, it was just follow the path, that was it.

Washburn House was where I stayed for four years.

It really was my home away from home.

My safe haven, where I grew a lot, where I became a young adult.

I mean, I really came from a household, [clears throat] where we had a maid, that was always there really.

I never made my bed.

So the opportunity to be here and learn like most other college students, [laughs] how to make your bed and how to cook.

Being a part of a house like Washburn, and the feeling that I had there was where it was my safe haven, where had amazing group of people, a community that taught me a lot.

- So now I am, I'm waking up in my own room and in an absolutely, you know, lovely space and, you know, Jill would pack care packages for us, you know paperwhites on the window sill.

So there were, you know, there was a lot of care.

- (Desiree) Peter and Jill de Villiers they would cook South African curries for us and we got to know their children, they just, they opened up their lives to us and we felt very comfortable in their home.

It was almost like a home away from home.

- (Thembekile) In those days, they used to call us foreign students.

I didn't find that pejorative, there was a lot of curiosity, about you know, "Who are these people from, you know, South Africa."

But it was sort of describing, having to describe to, most Americans, both Black and white, who we were and, you know, someone asked Thilo, "Why do you sound different?"

And we sound different because I speak, English is my second language and so on and we have, we had just huge life, different life experiences.

- (Chuma) I remember writing a letter to my mother saying, "I have a roommate, she is white."

[laughing] And I know to a lot of people doesn't seem like a big deal, but it kind of was, it was a very, it was like an immersion into something that I'd never imagined would happen.

And she was very nice to me and we still keep in touch to this day.

Washburn House was a very interesting house.

There were a number of international students there, so it felt kind of welcoming.

Thilo Simadari, who was the class of 89, was also at Washburn House, so I had a fellow South African in the house.

And I remember my second day at Smith, Thembekile came through to visit and I remember thinking, "Finally, I get to meet someone I can kind of relate to and speak the same language and you know", it's, so that felt like I wasn't on my own.

And Thandi Mvakali was in the same high school I came from.

So I felt like I had a built-in community already.

[gentle piano music] - (Nolwandle) When I left, I was excited, I was only 18.

I was quite determined.

Interestingly, my mother was probably the one who was in denial about this whole thing that I had gotten a full scholarship, they didn't have to pay a dime.

I just had to get on the plane.

She asked a lot of questions, "What are you going to do?

You're very young, you don't know."

I said, "Here's an opportunity, it's a lifetime opportunity that I don't have, I don't think you are able to provide for me."

'Cause I mean, I wouldn't have been able to afford to go to Varsity.

The foundation and the commitment those teachers had on us enabled me to actually get a full scholarship for four years at Smith College.

And to an extent, what was meant to be a curse was a blessing.

And coming on campus in an environment where for once I felt I was Nolwandle, a brilliant student and someone with actually a prospect in the future.

- (Tandiwe) When I came to campus it was important for me to seek out my community.

See it wasn't as important for me to seek out the South Africans as it was for me to seek out the Africans and I think that's just a factor of my experience having grown up in exile and then having gone to school in New Mexico.

And then once I had established myself there, I could then go out and seek new relationships.

I knew a lot of people but I really found that the African students network was my, was my support base and my home.

- (Nolwandle) I just felt it was actually effortless, whether we were coming from exile, whether we're actually coming from South Africa, whether we're coming from other parts of Africa, there was a shared purpose around, we are there to actually better ourselves for the benefit of our community.

- (Tandiwe) So every year we'd host what we called, Africa Day, because we'd put on a cultural show.

[African drum music] The African students at my time were a very close knit, grouping of women and in my other life I'd have been a performer on stage, 'cause I really love the African cultural expression.

[African drum music] We would spend hours and hours practicing gumboot dance and practicing our songs and practicing Indlamu, which is a traditional South African dance.

And those were the, some of the greatest moments at Smith.

I mean, there's never gonna be a time in your life, as the four years in college.

[gentle piano music] - (Heather) I left sort of a very angry, disillusioned, still trying to gather myself up.

And when I arrived at Smith, I was very much in that state.

Still being surprised that you could see Mandela's face without a big, big bar across his eyes.

It took me a day or so to figure out that I was one of many people for whom this was a new experience.

- (Kholeka) I met people from all over the world and those were part of the community that I belong to.

- (Desiree) I clearly remember during my period of intense homesickness, I was on the PVTA bus and I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said, "End apartheid!"

And I almost felt like something lifted off me because it was still in my very early weeks.

And I was still getting to know the place and the people and you know, trying to figure out how safe I am here.

And I'd never been in, in this type of context with being a minority, so to speak.

I felt like, "Oh, you know, people know, they know that that's wrong, I'm in a safe place."

[soft music] - (Peter) There were very active movements in the five colleges and they involved both faculty and students.

I was part of a faculty group that were urging the college to divest.

We had meetings with the trustees.

We had information meetings with students.

We had a big rally in John M Greene.

But our meetings were typically with the finance committee.

So there were lots of issues around fiduciary responsibility.

I will remember that term for the rest of my life, because those were what the arguments were about.

What it took it at Smith, was in 1986, there was a group of students sat in on College Hall.

- (Elizabeth) Growing up in Kenya, we were very cognizant and I grew up in a mixed race family, so we could never go to South Africa.

And so I don't think I was very educated about divestment Mary Maples Dunn was the president, it was her first year as president and she had made a lot of time to have meetings with us and so on, but it really came down to this meeting with the trustees and the trustees did not divest.

And we went into College Hall and we just sat down and we didn't leave.

- (Mona) I think I got very caught up in the excitement of being a protester.

I was invited to join by friends who were mostly white because they wanted some diversity in the protest.

I joined because I just wanted that feeling of solidarity.

I wanted that feeling of women supporting women in raising up a cause but we just got swept into it.

- (Siphokazi) Yes, I did join the march demonstrations, we sat in and I was asking the questions before I even went, "Why are we going to sit in?"

"Why is this important?"

"What is divestment?"

"Why do trustees have investment there?"

"How do we know they've got investments there?"

So I was like asking the basic questions, why this was so important to Americans?

[gentle piano music] - (Siphokazi) Arriving in America, the height of apartheid.

The international community is very awakened to what's happening in South Africa.

They are supporting, they're pushing for divestment.

There's a lot of stuff going on across the world to free Mandela.

Being only 16, having spent the past five years in a very sheltered all girls school.

And then I arrive in America and everyone is talking about South Africa, asking me questions, "What about this?

What about that?"

And I had grown up in a Homeland.

So Homeland was sort of a separate development arrangement of an independent state, that the South African government had set up.

So this was supposed to be all Black communities based on racial or ethnic groups.

[soft music] - (Siphokazi) So I grew up in the Transkei.

We had a Black president, Black cabinet, professors were Black, university had Black administrators.

Then I went to a school where we had a Black principal, very good school, very smart Black kids.

And then I went to America and I was being asked about all of these.

So I only learned about apartheid really from America.

'Cause then I had to understand how people perceived, where I came from, which was not how I perceived or how I had experienced where I came from.

So I had to learn very quickly that this is how the world works.

- (Heather) So, I had great friends from India and Nepal and different parts of our continent, but it was interesting that our common experience of exclusion is what pulled us together.

We hardly spoke about it, but somehow there was that connection.

And those were the people that we had become friends with.

- (Thembekile) One of the differences that we found with people who had not grown up under such an oppressive regime, they felt free to speak their mind and, and they would just, it would impress me and stun me.

One of the women we befriended was Florence Mwangi's daughter, she was the first African to come to Smith and her daughter was this, this firebrand, she just spoke her mind, in Literature of the Commonwealth and just was critical of "Heart Of Darkness" as a book that we would have to read and, and it was always very inspiring to have people like that because we know they were an example of how liberated you can be.

And that this is your opinion, and this is your voice.

And if you can, you know, stand behind it, then that's really, that's really powerful.

- (Tandiwe) A woman's education and a woman's voice matters.

And that a woman can be an engineer, can be a doctor, can be a mathematician, can be an economist.

And to have been taught by the caliber of professors that we were taught by and to never have been doubted or second guessed, but been allowed to, to aspire and to achieve.

- (Nolwandle) And you can also dream bigger than who you are.

The starting point is not, you are a woman, but you are actually an equal participant.

[upbeat music] - (Heather) Smith attracts all manner of women.

I mean, I think every single walk of life, I think every sexual orientation, women who couldn't have an education when they were younger.

for whatever reason and were returning as older students.

So when we socialized and had this time, we, we got to know each other.

- (Verna) See, I don't believe there's another place on this planet that looks and feels and tastes and smells and it's a unique place.

More than that, it's the relationships that you build at Smith.

- (Thembekile)You know, it made me sad at some point when there were random, blatant acts of racism on campus and that I did not personally experience, but it sort of started to create a separation of the whole because now everybody was suspicious or feeling that they might be in a not safe house and some houses were more famous than others for being exclusive, you know, or cliquey.

I did join the Black Students Association, which advocated on different aspects of Black culture, Black scholars, I really relished being part of that Black sisterhood, part of it as well because those women were just fierce and confident.

So that was a supportive environment for me.

You know, apartheid was such a break, you know, when we broke away from that.

I had let my shoulders relax after I left South Africa and so I wasn't about to start, you know, getting fearful about my environment, again.

- (Thandeka) So when I first arrived at Smith, there was a Black Students Association, which was a sort of predominantly Afro-American.

So myself and my other fellow Africans, we kind of assumed that we can be part of this because we Black, you know.

But later on, I then learned that there's a differentiation in identity.

So there's Afro-American and there's African, but we're all Black and our agendas and what we're going for is different, you know?

So I had to come to terms with that.

It came with a little bit of pain, but I accepted it eventually.

And I actually formed very good relations with some of my Afro-American sisters.

- (Vuyiswa) I was attracted to African-American studies because it was teaching us about the struggle of Black people in America.

And for me, it reminded me of the struggle and apartheid.

So it was almost a way of connecting in that level and really gleaning some of the similarities of, you know, the Civil Rights movement, looking at apartheid and because a lot of the Civil Rights movement leaders were very involved in the freeing of South Africans.

So I think for me, it was almost that socialist in me that was saying, "I also wanna understand the struggle of Black people in America and learn from that and what are the things we could do in South Africa and learn from."

- (Desiree) With being outside of South Africa and being here at Smith, I had more of an opportunity to, to learn more of the complexity and the diversity of what it means to be Black.

It was really a time of self-discovery and self-empowerment and the educational, as well as the social experiences that I had at Smith really prompted that, it stimulated that and it challenged that.

Being away from home within me, kind of strengthened and solidified my identity even more, it was like I wanted to hold on to it even more 'cause I wasn't home.

[upbeat music] - (Dr.

Brenda Allen) So Smith is a big family in and of itself.

And then there are families within the family.

You know, the students from South Africa are a little farther away from home, And then, you know, a few of them were psychology majors and so you begin to develop the relationships with them in that way.

I taught here... taught a course called Psychology of the Black Experience.

I didn't live through Jim Crow.

I grew up in the North, you know, racism was there, but, you know, manifests differently than what I studied when I, we talk about the South.

But you know, those are examples of, of things that we had to talk about in my course Apartheid is really modeled on racial segregation in the South.

I especially learned that from students who were a part of the group that came from South Africa because they were coming, you know, straight out of, you know, a country that was in turmoil and in a fight.

And they just had a different way of being in the world about, um, truth and, and equality and, and all the things that I think because of where I skirted through in my era, sorta took for granted.

And, and I have to say, I no longer take any of that for granted.

[gentle piano music] - (Meagan) So my entry into college was more American.

but I had a sense of growing up in both countries.

So I grew up in South Africa, my youth was there, then I came here also during a formative part of my youth and grew up here.

I had the American experience, I went to an American high school, I knew, you know, what the music was.

So I fit in, in many places because I can, I'll use the word code switch, right.

I can switch my accent.

but just that sense of fluidness to be able to do that is my unique experience having grown up in both places.

It's also isolating, because you have to then become very conscious about, well, what is my identity then?

So I can make this it, I can fit in over there.

So there's, that's part A, of the struggle of where do I really fit in?

But part B is then everything else that other people project onto you and having to in essence, survive in both places, right.

And then come onto a Smith College campus.

[soft music] - (Heather) In certain classes, there was a score for class participation.

And that changed my life entirely because I realized that you have to speak.

Whenever I put up my hand, it was very carefully because I wanted to be sure I had something to say.

And then secondly, the minute I got to my third word, the entire class would stop and turn around to see who was speaking.

And then I had to really steel myself to make sure I made my point.

- (Thembekile) I was taking class, it was education and child development, and I wasn't speaking in the class because I had a terrible stutter.

Got to the middle of the semester and the professor said, "You know, if you don't speak, I'm going to have to give you a C minus."

I just did absolutely what happens in "The King's Speech," just went over things until I was able to overcome.

- (Desiree) In South Africa, when you are in high school, around the age of 14, you choose your subjects that you study for the next two to three years, and that's what, that's your path for college and then your career.

And here I was with this liberal arts education, my mind and my life opened up in ways I hadn't expected.

- (Siphokazi) When I arrived at Smith, I was preparing to be a pre-medical student.

I'd been studying physics, cell biology, advanced calculus, organic chemistry.

In my third year, a friend invited me to go to a class with her, Thembekile.

And just listening to this Italian woman, talking about Black literature, blew my mind, I was like, "What on earth is this?"

I'd always loved to read, but I did not know you could actually study literature, the discipline in class, that you can sit in a class and discuss and analyze books and talk about ideas.

So this really excited me, it opened up a whole new field and I changed my major from Pre-med to literature, studying African-American literature.

- (Chuma) A woman professor in the geology department, Connie Soja, I worked with her going to Alaska for about seven weeks in the summer to do research and it was three women out in the middle of nowhere, Alaska.

I had never done anything that daring in my life.

I learned to drive a boat.

And the first time we had to empty the RV, [laughs] and we unlatched the thing for the bathrooms and everything just went out and we all laughed and laughed, and I said, "The flood gates of hell had opened."

And we had such a great time and, but it was one of those where you think anything is possible after this, I can do anything.

- (Heather) I think I really became a feminist in, in the broadest sense of the word that I really began to understand a woman's equal place in the world.

And that together with this class participation score sort of forced me into some articulation.

And I think that idea of expressing myself, I, I don't think I would have gotten anywhere else.

[soft jazz music] - (Vuyiswa) We were walking around campus, I looked at this young woman coming towards me.

She looked like someone from home.

And I asked her, I said, "Are you by any chance from South Africa?"

And it so happened to be Dada.

And she was very ecstatic and said, "Yes, yes, yes, no I am."

So I introduced myself.

And from that day on, I was Dada's big sister.

What a bubbly and what a bunch of energy.

She knew about Smith because her elder sister Siphokazi, had, was a graduate of Smith.

- (Siphokazi) Dadawele was extremely brilliant.

She was really just a gifted actor, but also a brilliant person.

She was witty.

She wrote poetry.

She was just really sharp.

Very, very quick.

She came back to South Africa.

She started working, acting in the local soapies, She was in "Generations," she was in "The Lab."

- (Vuyiswa) Dada and I were part of a production about domestic workers in South Africa, really wanting to educate the Americans about the realities of apartheid.

Dada was a bunch of energy and so vibrant and a voice.

May her soul rest in peace.

And I think she's doing great things wherever she is.

- (Thembekile) When I was 19, I called home and my father said, "Aren't you done with that program yet?"

[laughing] I was thinking I've only been here for, less than 20 months.

And then he said, "Oh, you can get a very good job as a domestic worker here."

And now imagine, am I going to actually walk out of Smith College and take my bags and go and work for some white family, taking care of their babies and cleaning up their house?

No, and, but I remember being so upset that they didn't have this faith that, you know, success would come in a different form.

My, my own voice was getting a little stronger.

I said, "Okay, this is it, I'm not, I'm not falling for that."

I felt a strong sense of responsibility to contribute to my family's, you know, situation financially, just would send money all the time.

And so that started to make sense to them that I was an industrious person and I was, you know, able to save money and I was able to support them so that some of the things, the hardships that I experienced growing up, were not so real anymore.

[gentle piano music] - (Tandiwe) Sacrifice came in many different forms under apartheid, I think people in the country sacrificed a lot from the stories that are very well known, the Nelson Mandela's 27 years in jail.

Winnie Mandela, 491 days in solitary confinement.

One is just the sacrifice of your comfort, the others, the sacrifice of time away from your family, from your children.

And I think the other sacrifice is just being in those situations and not being able to be a normal functioning citizen, that that makes a contribution every day to society.

For families, other families, they sacrificed, they lost people, you know, lost people in, in the war against apartheid and my parents put their careers on hold and they did full-time work with the ANC, as did many people.

They were working full time for an organization that could only provide them with subsistence living.

Young people left the country and came into exile, their families didn't know where they were, you know, that was also a sacrifice for the family.

So, there's just so many layers to it.

And I think at the time you don't really, you don't see it as sacrifice, but I think when you look back and you just think of, of what people went through and what became the norm.

- (Freedom Park tour guide) Okay, the section that you see here represent political executions.

163 people were executed for political activism.

- (Tandiwe) So I have four siblings and the sibling closest to me passed away in Angola in 1988, which is where the military wing of the ANC was based.

Okay, so these are all MK.

So he said he wanted to have a more meaningful impact on the fight against apartheid, which my parents found very difficult because they had planned for all of us to, pursue a tertiary education after high school.

The darker brick, so one, two, three, four, five... I just found my brother's name on the Wall of Remembrance.

How do we get a photo?

- Easy.

- (Tandiwe) Okay, come stand here.

- I've lost him.

- (Tandiwe) Oh, number 10, from this wall.

- Okay.

- (Tandiwe) It's 30, 40 years since he passed away in 1988 in Angola, he was part of a, a MK mission to take food up to one of the ANC camps there and they were attacked by UNITA rebels.

And he was in the front of the convoy so he lost his life along with about eight others.

They were buried in, right there at the site.

He was very young when he went to MK, he was 18, and he died at 20.

So it was pure conviction and I'm just really glad that he's, his name is etched in our history.

This is really special.

[camera clicks] Oh, my parents would have been so happy.

As he grows older, we'll be able to put the pieces together for him so that he understands exactly who his uncle was and what he, what he did, yeah, and what he stood for.

- (Reporter) There's Mr.

Mandela, Mr.

Nelson Mandela, a free man taking his first steps into a new South Africa.

- (Nelson Mandela) Amandla!

- (Crowd) Awethu!

- (Nelson Mandela) Amandla!

- (Crowd) Awethu!

- (Nelson Mandela) Your tireless, and heroic sacrifices, have made it possible for me to be here today.

[upbeat music] - (Tandiwe) In 1990, after the unbanning of the ANC, people started returning from exile.

My family was included in that.

Once the repatriation of exiles in South Africa was complete, there was a regrouping of the ANC, and they started to position themselves to govern.

[upbeat music continues] And my mother and a number of her colleagues from Lusaka, went into parliament and became part of the first parliament.

[upbeat music continues] - (Vuyiswa) The 1994 elections, which were the first democratic elections of South Africa, happened.

We participated and was able to cast my vote and voted for Nelson Mandela to be the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

A very proud moment for us.

- (Nolwandle) Tandiwe was our designated driver.

And it was supported from, and bless her soul, Mary Maples Dunn.

The hope that our parents had, the hope that we also had, even though we couldn't actually physically be in the country, we lived through that moment.

- (Heather) Entering my final year, my father was posted by Mandela to be the South African Ambassador to the US.

He was the first South African Ambassador as a free South Africa.

The activists that I had seen as I left South Africa, sort of with big beards and liberation, struggle t-shirts, now we're seeing them coming clean-shaven and in suits, and they were representing various ministries of the country.

So that shaped me also in a significant way to know that there's work to be done.

- (Nolwandle) At the same time, South Africa was actually taking such a significant step, we were also taking our own personal significant step, it's the year of my graduation.

[soft piano music] - (Desiree) The part of the hope and the goal of the program was for South African students to return and to participate in community life there.

There was no pressure.

Peter and Jill and folks were really like, you know, "So you have lots of options."

It was exhilarating.

- (Thembekile) South Africa was changing, but not in a way that would be sustaining to me and realizing that I may not return there.

- (Thandeka) It was a bit of a tough choice, you know, to say, "Do you stay and pursue further studies in the US or do you go back to South Africa?"

'Cause now, actually I was dating a guy who was in exile and he was now allowed to go back into the country.

I also didn't want to miss the excitement of the transitioning.

I wanted to be part of it.

- (Verna) It was never our intent to stay in the US you know, the goal was really to go back home.

I went on and got a masters in education.

I was interested in change efforts, so, curriculum reform and cultural diversity was the focus of my masters program.

And then life happened.

I met my husband, Sergio, who is actually from West Africa, from Guinea-Bissau.

You know, we were just meant for each other.

We've been married for many years, and then kids came along and, you know, when kids come along, that changes your trajectory tremendously.

- (Desiree) I was just very grounded in Smith and I think, I felt like I didn't wanna leave home again.

[laughs] So I stayed here, I did my masters and then I worked here and, and then I left to do my doctorate, but I didn't go far.

I went to Amherst to UMass so, so I stayed in the area and I fell in love with Smith, and I fell in love with the area and the community that embraced me.

- (Chuma) So I went to grad school, I got married, had kids, and here we are.

I never did go back to South Africa until 2003, when I got a job with De Beers.

I was in Joburg for about five years.

My mother was always my big supporter.

She said, "You can do anything you want."

She didn't finish high school.

She was a nurse, but she was a tough woman.

She, she went for what she wanted and I think without really meaning to, or without overtly doing it, she kinda gave me that sense of, "I can go get whatever I want."

- (Heather) My dad always said to us that, you know, "Some people are going to fight now and others need to fight later, maybe you need to be part of the crowd that fight later."

Everything that I did outside of the country was to gather the skills and experience as to what I would need when I went back.

- (Meagan) I've moved between industries seamlessly and I've had successes in all of them.

Now I work for New York City Government.

I wanted to eventually go back to South African Government as well, but I felt that New York City, as a training ground, as a practice ground would be amazing.

I can have lengthy conversations about what's wrong in the US right, or how US society has changed, how the political process is a mess and a disaster, but, I still defend it.

I still think it is a beacon of decent democracy.

Government service is really also about service.

- (Verna) At heart we still consider ourselves South African and find ways to make sure that the work that I'm doing right now really just contributes to society, you know, regardless of where that society is.

[gentle piano music] - (Tandiwe) I think education has given us choice, and that's really what's been able to drive our ability to grow and develop.

And that goes across all the beneficiaries of the scholarship.

I think education was the base and the foundation that gave you options.

- (Nolwandle) You wonder how our parents did it, because they worked longer hours, they traveled to far destinations.

They never had an opportunity to do homework with us.

And I look at the privileges that through education afforded me, to be able to be a mother, but also being supported through that process in a different way than my mothers will have had.

I've been very fortunate in my working life to have actually had mentors and leaders, male leaders, who understood the importance of creating an opportunity.

Gave me an opportunity to realize my potential.

We need more of that in a consistent way.

- (Vuyiswa) Am I raising a feminist in my son?

Absolutely.

It will only make him a better person.

And they see us as those mothers that are really doing it every day.

They must understand the journey of women and how it impacts everybody in the world.

-(Kholeka) I studied biology at school.

I am currently in the finance industry.

But Smith taught you that you don't have to be stuck in a certain lane, you know, you can do different things with your life.

- (Thandeka) In the main South Africa is still a very patriarchal society.

More and more women, are making different choices.

And those choices are around setting up their own businesses So I think I'm also one of those that exited corporate at executive level and then set up my own business.

So I've been running my own consultancy for almost 20 years.

- (Siphokazi) I started doing research independently, which stems from my interest in academia, but now it was independent research, which allowed me also as a mother to have more time with my children, but also be able to run a company successfully, doing research, which I love.

- (Thandeka) Apartheid is still buried in the institutions, whether it's corporate or even our own government, you know, there's still a lot of barriers within that.

The biggest damage that the apartheid system caused was on the psyche.

- (Vuyiswa) We have been profiled as a country that is most violent against women.

Because where you have such high unemployment, and a lot of the time when the men who's supposed to be the head of the family cannot even provide, what do they do?

They will now be lashing out at the next person that they supposed to be loving, because they've failed themselves.

And there's no system that then says, "How are we gonna help you?"

So as a society we continue to fail women.

And it is just about the sense of security that is not there and it must be fixed.

[traditional South African hymn] - (Tandiwe) It's a country that is beautiful, it's a country that has a great diversity of people, but I think it's also a country that's really facing probably one of the most complex times in the post-apartheid era.

- (Nolwandle) At the core is actually the psyche of the people, the psyche of violence in the country, in terms of what people have been exposed to, what they actually consider a norm.

How people cope with victimization.

Allow people to deal with the, the sense of hurt in a way that prevents that from actually being perpetuated onwards.

- (Thandeka) People still don't have a lot of self-belief.

So as a psychologist, that's what I'm working with, with shifting that, the conscious to say, you're capable.

You can do it, and you can.

You are created in God's image and you're so capable, and go for it.

- (Heather) If we asked what are the qualities of that leader?

I think first and fore mostly, it's heart.

You really have to have heart.

So I think it's also about being courageous.

And then I think it's about your willingness to get uncomfortable and really to say, "I'm prepared to lose everything I have, because I believe so firmly that walking this path is gonna make it better for more people."

And I think, you know, that's what we all want.

And that's, it's not a South African problem.

If you, if you read the reports on inequality globally, it's a global problem.

And the opportunity that South Africa presents is that it's a microcosm to be able to test some of these business, financial ideas, which have application globally.

I'm orientating my life in that direction because I'm a child of Mandela, as we all are.

It's something that I'll die trying.

- (Tandiwe) Home is South Africa, I think just because I want to protect that part of my life that I didn't have for so many years.

[upbeat music] - (Kholeka) I met some of the people that I love dearly at Smith because of the history that we share and how Smith empowered us, to think broadly.

- (Thilo) And to have an amazing amount of people standing behind us, that's when the tears come to my eyes and I think, "Oh my gosh, it's amazing what people did for us."

Oh my gosh!

Thembekile you look so good!

- Oh!

Thank you.

- (Thembekile) Now we're, giving back in various ways to Smith and our environments, because we realize just how fortunate this was.

- (Chuma) My longest held friendships, came from my high school in South Africa and my time at Smith.

And those are the ones I hold dearest.

[upbeat music] - (Tandiwe) The network is just impenetrable.

It's solid, it is genuine, it's authentic.

That that network is very, very strong.

- (Nolwandle) The investment in the education of a girl child, remains a very critical part.

I do feel as a woman leader, I've got a responsibility to lift others as I climb.

To ensure that I also create the same opportunities that were availed to me.

To ensure there's many of us.

We can never be comfortable only having two of us in the room and think that's okay, because when you educate a woman, you educate the society.