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IOL News
5 days ago
- IOL News
How Asanda Zincume transformed her life from despair to determination
Asanda Zincume: A year of transformation from homelessness to hope. Image: Xoli Mtembu/IOL In 2024, I met Asanda Zincume, a homeless woman from Durban, KwaZulu-Natal who was addicted to drugs, deeply traumatised and without drive in life. However, a year later she has transformed, is sober and beaming with purpose. At the time, I was assigned to connect and interview unhoused women for IOL's Elevate HER campaign. In our first encounter, Zincume first beheld me with eyes full of uncertainty and hesitation. I was, after all, a journalist, asking to stick a camera up to her face and question her on the tragic series of events that left her destitute and sleeping rough in the city's notoriously dangerous streets. Yet, in explaining my request, I saw her uncertainty and unsaid questioning of my intentions fade. Zincume, like countless other homeless women, can determine one's sincerity or lack thereof, which is an instinct needed to survive in the streets. What first struck me was that she was wearing high-heeled ankle boots and had subtly done her makeup. This, I subsequently learned, was armour she wore to protect herself from society's prying and often predatory eyes. Addicted to whoonga and taking methadone to counteract the effects, Zincume told me a story of a tumultuous upbringing, sexual grooming by an older man and the pain of contracting HIV. I recalled trauma specialist Dr Gabor Maté saying: "Don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain." Zincume told me that at the age of 17, she encountered a 20-year-old man selling whoonga in Durban. In exchange for sexual encounters, he gave her the drugs and a place to stay. However, the man was subsequently caught for drug selling, and she was unexpectedly without shelter. "I was terrified of being attacked and raped while I was sleeping and killed, with my body probably being disposed of like rubbish," she said. She also faced gender-based violence (GBV) where a man tried to coerce her into sleeping with him and beat her within an inch of her life because she refused. With quiet confidence, Zincume also shared the horrors she has seen on the streets and how they had moulded her into the woman she is. Yet, her strength was palpable; she had weathered impossible storms and come out. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Listening to her, I sensed that a dam had broken, and she had longed to speak about this chapter of her life to someone without a vested interest in it. I felt honoured that she entrusted that I would tell her story, with all the dignity it deserved. The image of the homeless in contemporary media is one of filthy, reeking, drug addicts and criminal. In writing about Zincume ,I sought to challenge this vilification and humanise her in a society where she is seen as less than. In her, I saw many facets of women in my life, those who fight battles on their own, the 'strong' ones and those who don't suffer fools. I walked away from the interview emotional, a fact which I tried to conceal. Upon the completion of the campaign, IOL delivered dignity packs to women from the Strollers Women's shelter. At the back of my mind, I kept thinking of Zincume who was not at the event. For that reason, I went and bought soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush and sanitary pads for her. She had been among the first homeless women I interviewed, and she had given me the strength and courage to approach others and request the highly sensitive interviews. So, when I saw again, I was elated to see the progress she had made. Her skin was glowing, and she was excited to let me know that she is studying to be a plumber. Hers is a story of perseverance, self-belief and faith. I can't wait to see what wonderful things the future has for her! IOL News Get your news on the go. Click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel.
IOL News
08-08-2025
- General
- IOL News
Elevate Her: Stand up for SA's forgotten women this August
This year, IOL aims to touch even more lives with it campaign to uplift homeless and housing insecure women across the country. Image: Hannah Gilbert We didn't know what to expect. We hoped people would care. What we didn't expect was for them to care as much as they did. In two weeks, we collected more than 300 dignity packs. Each one filled with items most of us take for granted — sanitary towels, roll-on, a toothbrush, socks, razors. Each one handed to a woman who was deeply grateful that someone thought of her basic need. The response humbled and overwhelmed us. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad Loading We saw people driving across town just to drop off donations. We saw businesses step up and say, 'we've got this'. We saw our colleagues, across departments and cities, rally behind the cause as if it were personal, because for many of us, it was. Then there was Patricia Kaiser. She was the first woman we featured. A mother of four, living on the streets, longing to be reunited with her children. Her story reached someone who once sat next to her in class. That person reached out to us. And within days, Patricia was back in contact with the children who believed she was dead. We even helped reunite her with her eldest daughter, someone she hadn't seen in 27 years. All this, because someone watched a video. Because someone shared it. Because someone believed in giving a homeless woman a second chance. That is the power of storytelling. And that is the power of you, our readers, our partners, our community. This year, we are back with the second edition of Elevate HER. The need hasn't gone away. In fact, it's grown. And so has our ambition.
