“Covid-19 has caused people to reach outwards to others with more compassion, or to retreat inwards, becoming self-focused,” Melrose resident Firdoze Bulbulia said.
Bulbulia is a judge for Brand SA’s Play Your Part Awards 2021, aimed at encouraging communities to reach out towards others, with the realisation that each one of us has the capacity to affect change in our country.
Bulbulia’s life story embodies the campaign’s Play Your Part message, as her journey has been about conquests of courage, bold stands for truth and equality, and determined career and personal exploits, aimed at encouraging others to embrace human rights, diversity and life in abundance. For Bulbulia, playing her part began when she stepped up as a student activist in the 1980s. “It concerned us that our education was unequal. We wanted equal rights for all. I continued my activism as a high school teacher and later, as a film, theatre and media producer.”
As she rose to prominence in her chosen profession as a producer, and film and documentary maker, she chose to plough much of her effort into the youth, believing in the inherent power of children, specifically when they understood their identity and were taught to embrace diversity, with strength, love and acceptance.
Bulbulia is chairperson of the Children and Broadcasting Foundation For Africa and she was also involved in the National Children’s Rights Committee in the 1990s.
Bulbulia has continued to play her part during the pandemic. She and her team produced a series of animations for children to understand the pandemic. She also started work on her PhD, focused on the Fordsburg Women’s Group of the 1980s, and launched an online chat show, The F-Show, which covers contemporary and political topics with high-profile guests from around the world.
Details: Follow her @FIRDOZE (Twitter) and Firdoze Bulbulia (Facebook).
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