Suidoosterfees artists share special video to honour inpsiring women [video]

To conclude Women’s Month, various artists combined their talents for a special music video honouring South African women who inspire communities with essential services.

The video combines a Lucas Maree song, Die Weduwee se Kruik, with Diana Ferrus’ ode to essential workers who bring relief and hope to communities during the pandemic. Yes, various actors and singers participated in the project, produced by the Suidoosterfees and Cape Town Music Academy (CTMA).

An ode to essential workers 

Cintaine Schutte, Buhle Ngaba, Nicole Holm, Babalwa Meintjies, Luna Paige, Lynelle Kenned and Jawaahier Petersen appear in the video with Cape Town women, Naazneen Karriem and Doctor Karienya Kasvalu.

Karriem has been running a soup kitchen in Chapel Street for the past decade. She provides daily meals for destitute people from her Wendy House, situated between two-night shelters. Doctor Kasvalu, who works in the emergency unit of a hospital, is at the forefront of the efforts against the world’s latest health pandemic. YOU magazine even went on to feature her in their July 2020 issue and the challenges she is facing as a doctor during this difficult time.

A celebration

“Bold women has always featured prominently in South Africa’s history,” says Jana Hattingh, executive director of the Suidoosterfees. “In 1994 the month of August was earmarked to celebrate women, and to remember the 1956 march to the Union Buildings, when 20 000 women protested the draconian apartheid pass laws. Women still struggle for equality all over the world. They often have to perform miracles to provide for their families, as Lucas Maree’s song aptly reminds us of the story of the widow’s oil in Lucas Maree`s song “Die Weduwee se Kruik.”

Vicky Davis, programme manager at CTMA, who also directed the project and video, says that the incredible work that women like Doctor Kasvula en Karriem do on a daily basis, should not go unnoticed.  Davis says: “This project is a celebration of women’s unmistakably essential contribution to the community. It is also a celebration of another essential component of society – the arts. This project is a tour de force of female creativity and an example of the positivity that can arise from the ‘women supporting women’ theme which dominated this Women’s Month, and which is a message we would like to continue sending into Springtime and the remainder of 2020.”

Schalk Joubert of Sunset Recording Studios produced the music and the video was recorded at Sunset Studios in Stellenbosch.