Médecins Sans Frontières - Driving Change in South Africa (ENG South Africa)

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF285946

Date taken / Date Recorded 11/09/2019 12:00 AM

Country South Africa

Commissioning section MSF-SOUTH AFRICA

Photographer / videographer / producer Nyasha Kadandara

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available yes

Editor's rating ★★★★★★★ (A)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 9m0s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 759.08 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist RUSTENBURG DRIVER’S STORY SCRIPT

SOT = Interview soundbite (it stands for “sound on tape”)
VO = Voiceover

Lebo SOT: This is the school, the primary where I once picked up a 9-year-old girl, a 9 year old? Yeah, I think she’s nine years old, who has been sexually abused by her stepfather. Yeah.

Now we are entering Sondela. The heart of Sondela now.

I think we need to educate the perpetrators.
That I think will lessen up this violence.

ON-SCREEN TITLE: Driving Change

VO: We’re here on the outskirts of Rustenburg in the Bojanala District in South Africa’s North West province, the heart of this country’s lucrative platinum mining belt.

More platinum is mined here than anywhere else in the world.

We’re on the road with Lebogang Seketama, one of the drivers for a sexual and gender-based violence healthcare project run in this area by Medicins Sans Frontieres, or MSF/ Doctors Without Borders.

Lebo grew up here. He literally has platinum in his mouth.

Lebo SOT: This tooth, it was broken into half. So, they told me, I can just replace it with gold or whatever. Then I chose platinum. Then the reason behind the platinum is because of I’m living in the platinum province.

VO: For a lot of the people living around the mines, especially in informal settlements, life is rough.

A 2015 MSF survey found that one in four adult women in this area had been raped at some point in her lifetime.

That’s why MSF, along with local partners, started providing medical, social and mental healthcare services to sexual and gender-based violence survivors here in 2015.

For most of the patients that we treat here, the first person they meet is a driver. And all of these drivers are men.

Lebo SOT: When I take this job, I thought, “Okay, I’m coming here, I’m going to only drive, collect the patient, drop them at the center, then take them back.” But now when I’m here I realize that, no, it’s more than that.

I have to be emotionally invested in this.

Because if someone come in crying to you, telling you what happened to them, you have to listen. Yeah, no matter how it hurts, you have to listen, you have to comfort them.

I think drivers have got a huge responsibility at MSF.

You can imagine I am a man, and the lady has been abused by a man. She has to get inside the car, and sometimes I’m alone inside the car with her. So, you know how it feels. You have to let her know that she’s in a safe place, she’s safe with you, then, that’s how it is. It’s emotional. Yes.

VO: Transporting patients follows a careful protocol. VO: In 2018, Lebo and the rest of the drivers went through formal psychological first aid training.

Lebo SOT: I greet them, I introduce myself, then after introducing myself, it will be up to them if tell me their name. If not, it’s okay. Then I open the door for them if maybe they need to. Then I tell them, “Okay, be comfortable because I’m taking you to the place where you will find help.” And then start the small talks. If she speaks, then I’ll respond. If she’s not responding, then I’ll just drive.

VO: Lebo knows something about what the patients he picks up are going through. When he was a teenager, his nine-year-old sister was raped by a neighbour.

Lebo SOT: And even now I know, she never went for counselling, you know? And sometimes even when I’m speaking to her, she tries to block that memory from her mind. But I know that that thing is still there, like it is on me now.

VO: This is Poppy. For years, she was in an abusive marriage. Then one day, her husband broke her shoulder.

Poppy SOT: As always, he come home drunk. He pushed me against the wall. And unexpected. Then I heard something, like something’s cracking.

I thought that no, maybe it was a mistake and he will never repeat it. But I was lying to myself.

VO: She was divorced and homeless when she first sought help. She still remembers the first time an MSF driver picked her up.

Poppy SOT: I was crying, then he says, “I don’t know how much pain you feel, I cannot tell you it’s going to be okay, because I don’t know for how long have you been living like this, but what I can tell you is just try to be strong.”

Lebo SOT: I also started to be violent on the street with other kids because of what I saw in home.

Because I saw that my father is feared at home, so I always wanted to be feared on the street.

I had anger, regarding what happened, what I see when I was growing up. So, even this job has changed me in a way that I could see that, no, you know, there’s no need in harbouring in anger. What’s the better way? The better way is to deal with it. So, it’s changed me a lot.
Because I could see myself on others, my reflection on others. So, it helped me a lot.

Lebo talking to client on phone: Good day, my sister. I am fine. I am here to pick you up.

VO: Lebo says he does talk to his friends about shifting attitudes.

Lebo SOT: They will listen to you, some of them they will take what you say, some of them they will listen to you but they will not do what you said. Yeah, so it’s just a matter of choice.

Lebo SOT: My daughter, her name is Reatlehile, which means, “we have prospered.”

She is, she’ll be three years on the 25 of December. She is my Christmas present.

First and first I want to make sure I secure my little girl’s education.
Then I need to lead by example of what a good father is, so that when she grows up and has a husband, she could know that, okay, if her husband is doing something wrong, she can say that “No, my father didn’t teach me this, and this has never happened at home, so it means it’s wrong.”

I want her to be independent. So that’s my hope for her, so that she can do whatever she wants.

VO: Lebo isn’t the only driver on this team who’s helping break the cycle of sexual and gender-based violence in these communities. Each guy on the team, through interacting with patients and socializing with friends, is helping to drive change.

Poppy SOT: When you talk, they listen to you. They don’t judge you.
They are loving people, really, and they care a lot.

TEXT ON SCREEN:
South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of violence against women.
Yet care for survivors remains limited.

Since 2015, MSF works with the North West health department to provide survivors of sexual and gender-based violence with comprehensive care in Rustenburg’s Bojanala District.

Sexual violence is an emergency.
We believe all survivors should have access to complete medical and psychological care.