Sinethemba is a grass roots organisation of African women in the communities around Marikana, South Africa. The area is highly dangerous and polluted. There is no government support, many of the communities still lack basic utilities.

We invite contributions to support Sinethemba’s main projects, that are in two strands:

• Training and capacitating: workshops on surviving trauma, Gender Based Violence, and community representation

• Social support: there is great poverty and the winter is harsh. Sinethemba distributes food and clothes. It runs artisan workshops where women come together to make handicrafts.

These projects are entirely voluntary. Sinethemba are women in the community who mobilise against all forms of repression and violence against them.

Marikana is a place of platinum mining, notorious for the massacre of 34 striking mineworkers on 16 August 2012. The then mining company, Lonmin, refused to negotiate and had urged the police action to break the strike. The current company Sibanye Stillwater has made enormous profits since it took over Lonmin in 2019, but the communities, especially women and children, remain impoverished.

The women's fight continues.