Shine a light for hope with Women’s Day campaign

WITH Women’s Month on the horizon, the South African Hindu Maha Sabha launches a campaign to spread hope. They are calling on women and men of all faiths to share short videos on social media to spread positivity amid the negative news that often creeps into messages online.

The campaign is accompanied by the hashtag, #llightofhope during the month of August.

Sabina Besesar, a Morningside resident and executive member of South African Hindu Maha Sabha, said the programme is open to all South Africans, irrespective of race and gender.

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“We are actually encouraging men to support this initiative because most of the time, we get a lot of men who do support women. We try to get as many people involved as we can. So far we have the Hindu Maha faith, Christian and Muslim faiths. We are looking for more support. Now that schools are open, we are reaching out to schools as well. We are especially reaching out to young women who have supported friends and family in a silent way,” she said.

Besesar said the South African Hindu Maha Sabha will host a webinar on August 31 with professionals addressing gender-based issues and informing the community where they can find free support.

“We are hoping to create a data base of volunteers to support the community,” she added.

Tamryn Iyer, a member of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha said they are encouraging people of all ages to share their own encouraging messages with the hashtag #lightofhope.

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“With everything going on, not just since the riots, but even since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we spend a lot of time on social media, even if it’s just WhatsApp. With all that’s going around- fake news, bad news, hatred, the SA Hindu Maha Sabha, being the official body of Hinduism, in the country, are going to start filling timelines (on social media) with hope and positive messages to spread love and unity,” said Iyer.

“We will be sharing on our platforms, but we also encourage people to upload their own light of hope on their own platforms, for their audiences. Your hope will be different to my hope. My video focused on my ‘light of hope’ for all girls and women who have business ideas, but did not have an opportunity to act on those ideas. We want the videos to be practical, simple and most importantly, short, because we know that on social media people have an attention span of three seconds at most,” she said.