My name is Ndumie Funda, I'm a 40 years old gay female activist. «Everything about me is big, my smile, my heart, my intentions, my problems, my empathy, my determination and also my dreams.

 

Principles that guide my life are percistence, perseverance, patience and passion and that allows me to be strong in building movements and people’s organizations. The pain and struggle of those less fortunate than me, inspires me to reach out. Its something that has been circulating in my blood vessels since I was a child, growing up in the dusty area of Gugulethu and participating in the anti apartheid movement.

 

Issues that I am hoping to change and am fighting for are the plight of young black lesbian women who are taking drugs, are raped and violated, have contracted HIV/AIDS, are hungry and unemployed, are evicted from their homes because of their sexuality and are prostitute themselves in order to survive. 

 

Growing up in Gugulethu, a black township near Cape Town, I was raised in a strict Seventh Day Adventist family, in a society where a woman was expected to know her place: everything was conducted by men. We couldn’t be outspoken: we were not equal. I knew from a young age, that I was feminist and lesbian – two things that I could never change. 

 

31 March 2008 I founded Luleki Sizwe after the deaths of my dear friend Luleka Makiwane and my fiancée Nosizwe Bizana. Both were raped because of who they were and died because of HIV/AIDS, infected by their attackers. Luleki Sizwe means to discipline the nation constructively and I believe that educating people is the key. My calling is to empower those who are less fortunate than me and change negative perceptions. I and the members of Luleki Sizwe look after lesbian women who have been abused in horren-dous ways and are living with HIV and other scars of their abuse».