Gezel'endishini : For Black Mental Health.

Our cover feature for the Mind Matters issue attempts to tackle flagging mental health in townships.

Growing up in South African urban townships, we were fortunate enough to witness a myriad of cultures. Traditional indigenous customs and rituals intertwined together with western urban ways that birthed new harsh realities.

The townships inherited the disheartening legacy of apartheid's racial and spatial segregation. Built far away from the cities and towns, poverty-stricken and violence-ridden neighbourhoods are common.

"Many young black people have fallen deep."

The series Gezel'endishini attempts to highlight the anxieties and complexities of living in the townships. Constant and prolonged stay in the townships is exposure to various social determinants that contribute to mental health challenges such as poverty, abuse, depression, alcohol-and-drug-abuse, suicide, unemployment, violence, crime and many other factors that lead to mental health challenges. However, the problem is more complicated than that.

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South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world. Unsurprisingly too, the country's mental health disparities are staggering in a way that resembles its inequality that runs along a swelling tide of racial and ethnic borders. Neglecting the brunt of the burden that mental health challenges bear on everyday South Africans living in the townships.

"The curse is though, we are still here."

"Many young black people have fallen deep. In a marathon of changing their experiences because of the hardships they experienced and these were amply associated with the conditions that they grew up in. The curse is though, we are still here. Stuck, frustrated and so ashamed at the prospect that we are living these lives. Dead in the misery of working hard and not having anything else to give day in and day out. Drowned in tedious work and unrelenting stress of having to live this way. Stooping way into depression and calmed by the world's vices. We are a tired depressed people, washing our bodies in dishes and cursing every moment of it".

We are a tired people.

Si geza endishini

Mental health will forever be a continued conversation.

Credits

Photography: Tshepo Mogopodi (@tshepo_mogopodi)

subject: Phakamile Mohoto (@mohotopm)

assistance: John Mohale (@mo.j_keys)

writer: Thoupi Kgatshe (@kalahari_marrakesh)