Lindiwe Nkutha
I am a feminist, an author, a documentary filmmaker, a reluctant poet, and, as of 2020, a co-founder and director of Osibakhulu Development Initiatives (ODI). I currently work for the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) as operations and finance manager.
The stories I tell, which have been published in various anthologies and journals, and now in a standalone collection, focus on the dailyness of Black life. They shine a spotlight on the lived experiences of the section of the population that the eye seldom goes to of its own volition, to illuminate the joys, the pain, the violence, and the beauty that fill these lives, so that the reader and viewer sees them anew.
All my life I have worked in the development sector. I previously served as a finance manager, working in the areas of land, HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, media and communications as well as strategic litigation. I have witnessed first-hand how intent and imagination, well-conceived ideas turned into action, can enhance a people's lives. This is why, I decided to harness my skills and join forces with two other likeminded women to form ODI, an organisation dedicated to equipping Black women and youth with the skills to write their own stories, make their own documentaries, and be seen and heard unmediated by third parties.
The work I do and have done, including acting as convenor of the People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) Writing Competition for three years, has been to ensure that the unheard stories of Black women and youth in particular gain expression through their tone and tenor. Now my conviction and my personal motto is, as expressed by Arundhati Roy, “There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”