Ayesha Bagus (left) and Lorraine Steyn – Picture Credit: Mishra Sonday
“Courage doesn’t always roar; sometimes it whispers: try again, speak up, take the space you deserve.”
Ayesha Bagus, founder of Mothers4Gaza, reflects on how her experience of Women Walking at Midnight was heightened by the company of the woman who, for her, embodies the power of women supporting women.
Walking for Women, Walking for Tomorrow
By Ayesha Bagus
On Wednesday, 13 August 2025, in the heart of Women’s Month in South Africa, we walked the night streets of Salt River, women of different journeys, walking as one, in solidarity with mothers in Palestine. This was not just a walk of remembrance; it was a walk of imagination. A walk to say: we will not look away, and we will not stop believing in a better world.
Among the women walking beside me was Lorraine Steyn, my boss, my mentor, my friend. Since I joined Khanyisa Real Systems in 2011, Lorraine has been the steady voice that pushed me to find mine. She sent me for assertiveness training, nudged me into Toastmasters, quietly added my name to workshops and conferences, and gave me a seat at the boardroom table just before my 35th birthday. With every step, she taught me that courage doesn’t always roar; sometimes it whispers: try again, speak up, take the space you deserve.
Lorraine also opened the door to systems thinking for me. She gave me Donella Meadows to read, and through that lens, I began to imagine the world differently, not just as it is, but as it could be. Who would have thought that learning to see systems in SocioTech would lead me here: to founding Mothers4Gaza and walking for justice and hope alongside women who refuse to be silent.
The walk itself was an act of solidarity, but also an act of imagination. We asked: What could a better future look like for the women of Palestine? What does justice look like? What does freedom feel like? What does hope sound like when it’s sung by mothers who have lost too much and yet still nurture life?
We paused at Cissie Gool House, where women here in Cape Town, South Africa, continue to fight for dignity, for homes, for the promises a government has failed to keep. Their struggle reminds us that our work is never only about Gaza, or Salt River, or any one place, but about all the spaces where women carry the weight of survival and still dare to dream of more.
For me, this walk was both deeply personal and powerfully collective. It was a celebration of women who lift each other, who mentor and mother across borders, who pass on courage like a torch. It was also a reminder that change comes when we choose not only to fight for a better world, but to imagine it together.
To Lor – fearless, visionary, unrelenting – thank you for showing me what it means to walk with both conviction and tenderness. And to every woman who walks beside me, in South Africa, in Palestine, and beyond, may our footsteps echo into the future we dare to believe in.
Because when women walk together, the world shifts.
“This ancient Sufi story was told to teach a simple lesson, but one that we often ignore: The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.” ― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer
I am the Coordinator of Mothers4Gaza
a small grassroots movement started in May this year…
because we know the struggle of mothers in Gaza is our struggle too.
The fight for justice is not confined to one place
it is here in South Africa,
in Sudan,
in the Congo,
and in Palestine.
All of these struggles are interconnected
rooted in the same systems that dispossess,
dehumanise,
and destroy.
I am the daughter of a mother from District Six
a woman who was forcefully removed,
but never stopped longing for her beloved William Street.
She taught me to never look away from injustice.
Tonight, I honour the women of Palestine
and their resilience and fight for their homeland and families
and the women of Reclaim the City,
who will share with us their fight for Cissie Gool House…
a fight for dignity, land, and home.
Let us stand together, across borders and struggles
and fight for a better world for our children…
one where no mother has to raise her child under occupation, displacement, or oppression.
Because we must continue to believe that a better world is possible
and fight for it, for our kids.
This piece was written for the August 2025 edition of Postscripts, Shamillah Wilson’s monthly round-up of what’s been happening in feminist circles, her work, and some recommended reading suggestions.
