Sizani is the founder and director of the Rural Women’s Movement.  She worked for ten years as a gender specialist for the Association for Rural Advancement in KwaZulu Natal.  Prior to that she worked for the South African Women’s National Coalition as a provincial coordinator.  Sizani was also appointed the first organizer in the Northern Natal Region by the African National Congress (ANC). 

“Sizani started working with our community in 1989.We had no idea about sustainable development or environmental justice issues.She came to our community and suggested to us that we organize ourselves and establish an organization which is going to act as a voice to represent poor rural women’s needs and aspiration.By end of 2000 we had built 10 rural women’s grassroots organizations focusing on different issues: sustainable development, economic empowerment, participation of women in local governance and land rights issues.All of these grassroots organizations are affiliated to the Rural Women’s Movement of which she is a founding Director.” (Sizani's peer)

“Sizani is very active in grassroots advocacy. She has in the past assisted the grassroots organizations to learn and internalize new policies around land, development and gender and helped the representatives of organizations to develop oral and written submissions and petitions to be presented before parliament.The woman who had been selected to do the presentations were women who did not have an opportunity to get formal education and could not read or write.They did their presentations before national parliament in their own indigenous language (Zulu).It was incredible."

Sizani has been an activist for women and children’s rights for 40 years, and is particularly passionate about women’s independent rights to land and other natural resources, sustainable rural livelihood.Sizani grew up in the rural areas just outside of Pietermaritzburg. She was unable to complete High School because of her family’s financial situation, but made it a priority to educate herself.

Sizani describes her work in environmental sustainability and environmental justice…

My work has included introducing sustainable rural development into communities using the indigenous way of doing it.Colonization took away valuable indigenous way of sustainable development and this has contributed to the impact of environmental degradation.Women are concerned about this environmental degradation but do not have the capacity to correct their situation because they are not actively involved in local decision making structures.

In our effort to increase the women’s participation in local governance we have created a program that specifically encourages effective participation of women in local governance and political spheres of our lives.In the last 5 years the number of women in local governance has increased – for the first time in our history we are seeing women in traditional authority structures which ten years ago was something that was seen as impossible.

In what ways have you taken leadership in your community? In what ways do you support other women working alongside you?

I have taken leadership in my community by initiating the establishment of the Rural Women’s Movement which has now grown to more than 500 women’s grassroots organizations.I have taken the leadership in identifying laws and policies which are not user-friendly to poor rural women and helped the grassroots organizations to acquire skills on how to tackle these laws and policies in order to make suggestion to policy makers and authorities.I support other women working alongside me by collecting relevant information and sharing it with them, by keeping a close look out for opportunities for women and making suggestions for alternatives.

I tirelessly raise funds to address women’s needs and aspirations and connect women alongside me to relevant women’s organizations at provincial, national and international level.To strengthen these networks I have helped the amaHlubi Tribe to establish an information centre where women would be taught how to work on a computer in order to be able to connect to other women’s organizations in other parts of the world.In our province this is a first of its kind project and the aim is to establish these centers in all the communities we are working with.

What tools or programs do you envision as needed to strengthen the efforts of grassroots women working to protect the environment?

The tools or program needed to strengthen the efforts of grassroots women working to protect the environment include effective participation of women in local governance.Women are the ones who spend hours collecting firewood, water and other natural resources, they make the majority of the population who vote the parliamentarians into parliament, they are the caregivers of all the sick people in their respective communities, they spend a lot of time doing unpaid work in their households and communities but their voice is not heard when it comes to decision making and policy making.

Women need to be actively involved in politics.There is a great need for women to have independent rights/access to land and other natural resources like indigenous medicinal plants.Programs dealing with gender based violence should be implemented as a matter of urgency.In South Africa one woman is murdered by a male partner in six days. We are witnessing a lot of incest and sexual violence against girl children as young as 3 months old.A lot of girl children are missing in the country and some have been murdered.