Cape Town - Ahead of Mother’s Day on Sunday, Extinction Rebellion Cape Town and its supporters hosted a Mothers Rise Up protest in front of the National Gallery in the Company Gardens to call attention to what they as mothers really want – a liveable future and environment for their children to grow up in.
The protesting mothers on Saturday, relayed their concerns that with the worsening impacts of climate change, a liveable future and environment was slipping away.
Jacqui Tooke, a mother and spokesperson for XR Cape Town, said: “We’re here today because with Mother’s Day on Sunday, we are overwhelmed by messages and media from big corporations telling us that what makes us happy is chocolates and fluffy slippers but in reality, as a mother we want to see our children fed, healthy and having a future that's bright.”
However, as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced, Tooke said that mothers across the world were worried that the comfort of these basic needs was becoming more threatened as families were driven out of their homes by floods or heat waves and their children's futures endangered.
“We’re standing in solidarity and highlighting stories from mothers from Somalia, India, Pakistan, even here in our own country, who have had to bury their own children because of the impacts of climate change, or who are living in makeshift shelters because their homes were destroyed by floods or heat waves,” Tooke said.
A story shared at the protest was that of Nompumelelo Melemela and her 17-year-old daughter, who are still living in emergency accommodation a year after their home was washed away in the 2022 Durban flooding, which was initially reported by GroundUp.
The factory where Melemela worked was also destroyed in the flood and as a result she is without work, unable to pay the transport costs for her child to attend school, which is far from their temporary shelter.
XR Cape Town spokesperson Judy Scott-Goldman, a mother to two daughters and grandmother to two girls, added that no mother can be content if they have concerns about their child being hungry, unsafe, or not being able to look forward to a bright future for that child.
“So we had to do to draw attention to the fact that South Africa is really not living up to its responsibilities in terms of reducing global carbon emissions, and this is having a big impact of climate change,” she said.
Liziwe McDaid, from eco-justice organisation the Green Connection, also joined the protest and said: “We are living on a planet which is focused on extraction, oil and gas, plastic and so much consumerism that we've lost touch with reality, which is that we need a sustainable way to survive.”
