Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma: A beacon of resilience and activism in South Africa

A mogul in making; TV personality, activist, leader and mother, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma embodies a true rock, a sign of stability and resilience.

Born and bred in KwaMashu, Ngobese-Zuma is a lady who’s passionate about life, and loves being a mother.

Ngobese-Zuma says she has always been a leader,  and never a conformist throughout her life, and often took the initiative and stood up for those who weren’t able to fend for themselves.

“I can’t say anything motivated me to champion the citizens' rights. From my school days, I’ve had leadership roles that required me to stand up for other learners.

"Even at church, I was led the youth and everywhere else it was the same. I’ve always been an initiator and a conversation starter,” Ngobese-Zuma said.

On how the March on March movement started, Ngobese-Zuma said the movement started as a conversation on social media among South Africans who were concerned about the state of the illegal immigrants in the country.

She said she realised that people were engaging in once off marches that were not yielding results. Hence, she came up with the movement.

She said her journey of being an activist was not smooth sailing, rather one where intimidation was commonplace.

“I think for anyone who is doing something this big, threats are inevitable."

Ngobese-Zuma said she has learnt to live with the fact people say they would use muthi to track or kill her.

About Gender-Based-Violence, the radio personality said the reason why we have the scourge  was due to the country suffering from a curse of not dealing with issues thoroughly.

“In South Africa we don’t come up with solutions to problems, we resort to quick fixes.

"We come from a very violent past, so the only language that majority of us understood is violence. We never had the chance to unlearn such behaviour”.

To empower women, Ngobese-Zuma said women needed to be given space to showcase their courage in order to be respected.

Zuma, however, warned that women must not allow themselves to be victims, and break boundaries.

“When we out and about as women, we need to be mindful that we are representing all women, that is very important.

"If we get that right, men won’t be able to shut us out, because we are in the majority”.

DAILY NEWS