“I have a name” is an incredible photo series showcasing everyday South Africans in the most phenomenal way. Proudly South African… one story at a time.
The stories are told by the incredible South Africans… raw & unedited. It’s a showcase of humanness, a reminder that behind every face, is a name.
Meet Paulina Dube, a South African still full of hope.
Paulina Dube is a petite little woman. I’m surprised to hear that she is mom to 6 children between the ages of 6-20
I miss them so much! It has been 2 years since I saw them.
They live with my mom in Mapumalanga. I came to Johannesburg to look for my husband. He just disappeared one day. I thought he was a good man… I don’t know why he did this to us.
Maybe he found a new young wife without children to support.
Someone told me they had seen him in Fourways and so I came to look for him… I never found him.
Now I don’t want to find him anymore – I don’t want a man – I just want to find employment so that I don’t have to live like this.
I have 1 day/week of domestic work.
The rest of the week I work with my friends here recycling.
It is very cold now at night without shelter.
When the police came with their guns and petrol and burnt our shacks last week, I cried.
I didn’t cry about the clothes, but I cried about my ID.
My ID is everything – I can’t find employment without it.
We had been living here peacefully for 4 years. We work hard trying to make a little money to survive by recycling.
When I phone my children they don’t want to talk to me – they think I left them just like my husband.
I tell them I am looking for work so that I can support them, but they don’t want to listen anymore.
As a mom, it hurts my heart so much.
“I Have A Name” is a space where an anonymous photographer (we’ll call her J) is taking photos of everyday South Africans to showcase their incredible stories.
How do we bridge the great South African divides? Black vs white, young vs old, rich vs poor, men vs women? The divides that keep us from making eye contact with the beggar standing on the street corner, or the stranger in the lift.
CS Lewis said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
Come with me on a journey…the stories and names behind the faces of everyday South Africans living their life in your neighbourhood, on your streets.
I think you will discover that we have a lot in common.
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