Verity's Blog

A journey for my soul and soles...

11 years ago in June I set off to walk across Spain in memory of my father. It was a journey that changed my life and saw me commit to following my dream of being a singer. 11 years later, I am setting off at the beginning of May to walk 800km from Le Puy En Velay in France down to the Spanish border in memory of my mother.

It is funny the twists and turns that life takes and I could never have imagined losing both my parents so young. I have spent the last year mourning my mum and feeling the huge hole that her passing has left in my life. In many ways I am at a crossroads - Where to next? Who am I? What is my purpose?

And so I am going to walk in the possiblity of the years to come. I am going to walk through my grief and walk back into hope and health. I don't know what realisations and wisdom those many miles will bring but I am committed to throwing myself into the wide unknown and discovering how life catches me. If all goes well I may come home and have enough money raised to record my second album, but most importantly I hope to come home renewed and with a fresh sense of purpose for my life.

If all goes well I will reach St Jean Pied Du Port on the 10th of June - 11 years to the day that I set off from there in memory of my father. It is a true full circle of life, and I feel priviledged to have this time to honour the people who gave me life. The next two months are a journey of my soul and soles and I hope that I can carry my mother's memory and spirit with me every step of the way.

Lucky Packet Education

A few months back the band and I performed at an Aids Awareness Concert and I decided to give a bursary away on the night. Audience members filled in forms motivating why they should win and it was heartbreaking to decide who to award it to. Seems like going the lucky draw route was our ownly choice...

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15 Bursaries for young girls

A thank you from Shaheema from the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children in Mannenberg for the 15 Intec Bursaries for R5000 each that I was able to give them to award to young matriculants wanting to study further. It is awesome that these bursaries will give 15 more women the chance to follow their dreams and empower themselves!

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Thank You from POWA

Dear Verity & All Your Future Owners

POWA staff, volunteers, and board members are grateful for the continued support you showed to us. The care and concern that you continue to show is highly appreciated. Through your contribution the struggle to end violence against women is strengthened.

Your donations help towards our continued provision of emotional and practical support to abused women and their children, which include counseling, sheltering and court support. The service and support we have from you is making our task as rewarding as it is necessary.

As always, we are honoured and pleased to receive recognition and support for the work that we do for the women and their children in South Africa

Sincerely

 

Baleseng Segona

Personal Assistant to the Executive Director

What we've done for POWA so far...

HELP THEM BREAK A WORLD RECORD...

Break the Silence, Break the Cycle and Break a World Record

GOAL: 25 Million Names in support of one single cause:

our campaign: " Enough is Enough" aims to help end abuse against women and children in South Africa and globally

To Enter Please Select Link Below

http://www.thewillow.org/record_enter.htm

to add your name to the world’s largest registry

Please forward this email to everyone you know and help manifest change in South Africa

On 'Being you...'

POWA does invaluable work with victims of woman abuse in South Africa. Frighteningly SA has some of the highest statistics of abuse in the world.

My philosophy to "be you" is easier said than done. Only when we have a valued sense of self worth do we even begin to know who we are. But, if you are in a situation that is harmful to you, and you don't know your own worth, you may tolerate it far longer than is good for you.

No-one deserves to be treated with disrespect or malice in this life & POWA provides a safe haven for women to turn to for help. There is no excuse for abuse & I am committed raising awareness about the problem it is in South Africa. 5.3% of everything I make on the Lucky Packet Project is going to go to help POWA with their work. It has been incredible to already have raised enough money to be able to furnish one of the POWA shelters with blankets, duvets, crockery and cutlery and more recently 3 fax/copiers for them to use in their offices. It is a small start but every little thing helps them with the work they do.

The more albums I sell, the more I can give them, and the more awareness we can create. Not saying anything means we're ok with it not changing.

And nobody knows why it carries on.
Nobody knows, but it still feels wrong.
But maybe tomorrow, well tomorrow it'll change.
And all this anger will go away...

Women who know their place...

I love this story...

Barbara Walters of Television's 20/20 did a story on gender roles in

Kabul, Afghanistan , several years before the Afghan conflict.  She noted

that women customarily walked 5 paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind

their husbands.  From Ms. Walter's vantage point, despite the overthrow

of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem to walk even

further back behind their husbands and are happy to maintain the old

custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why Do you

now seem happy with the old custom that you once tried so desperately to

change?"

The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without

hesitation, Said, "Land Mines."

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Behind every man is a smart woman.

Buying Fax/Copiers for POWA

Hi all my Future Owners! I thought you would like to see how you buying one of my albums made it possible for me to buy 3 fax/copier machines for POWA this weekend while I was up in Joburg! Much needed for three of their offices up there. Thanks so much for believing in my dream and music and making a difference for the incredible work they do at the same time! I am very present to how much we can achieve when everyone contributes a little bit. I have already been able to pay out R8000 worth of goods to them as I have 1100 Future Owners creating my album with me already. YAY!

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If you aren't a future owner of my album already, then www.iamverity.com/order.htm is where you can buy your copy and be part of the amazing community of people helping me to empower women and uplift other SA artists while I live my dream of recording a worldclass album.

Talk at Saartjie Baartman Centre

Since committing to raise awareness about woman abuse in South Africa, I have run into so many incredible initiatives that are making a difference and empowering survivors of abuse. I was invited by an organisation called Infinite Woman to talk and perform at a fund raising event for The Saartjie Baartman Center in Mannenberg in Cape Town back in July. (Apologies for taking so long to post a story about it!)

Infinite Woman have nominated the centre as their charity of choice and were having the event to celebrate their partnership. Patricia DeLille was a guest speaker and attended the event in her capacity as an empowered South African woman and not a politician. I was invited along to sing and talk about the power of our dreams to shape our future. It was pretty daunting to stand up and share my beliefs with women who come from situations that are sometimes beyond comprehension.

The amazing thing for me, was that as I started to talk I shifted the focus from what I had planned and started to share from my personal experiences in relationships that didn't serve me and how I had empowered myself to start making different choices. From there I could explore the opportunity we have to acknowledge our past but choose not to have it determine where we go.