The Project
The project aims to utilize the arts not only to enhance response services for survivors but also to address South Africa’s national crisis by developing the country’s first customary law initiative. This initiative will outline strategies to combat gender-based violence (GBV) through traditional approaches. The research is designed to empower women economically through arts-based entrepreneurial training and will act as a pilot for advocating broader GBV policy reforms throughout South Africa, especially in rural areas. The COVID-19 lockdowns have led to a disturbing rise in GBV, exacerbating gender inequalities and increasing the vulnerability of women and girls to various forms of abuse. In light of this situation, AiA reaffirms its urgent commitment to fighting GBV.
Raising voices against witchcraft-related violence, ageism, and gender-based violence
Arts-in-Action honours the resilience of elderly women in South Africa who reclaim their agency through song and raise their voices in the fight against ageist stigmas.
In 2021, Professor Nanette de Jong, from Newcastle University, partnered with Chief Jongisilo Pokwana ka Menziwa, from the Eastern Cape and director of NGO Vusizwe, and Cheryl Hlbane, Director of Frida Hartley Shelter in Johannesburg, on an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded project entitled Arts-in-Action.
This project was organised to connect the visual arts — painting, drawing, beadwork — with the performing arts — music, dance, theatre — for the purpose of tackling societal challenges in AmaZizi. Over the project’s two-year duration, over a dozen arts-based interventions were implemented, including a choir to support elderly women finding themselves at risk of witchcraft-related violence.
In 2025, a further impact award was received from the Arts & Humanities Research Council to extend the women’s choir intervention to additional regions combatting witchcraft-related violence in South Africa. The expansion established 10 additional choirs across the Eastern Cape, mobilising 150 women to actively counter the challenges of ageing and witchcraft-related violence through song.
We also are working with older women who migrated from the rural areas to Johannesburg. They shared their own unique struggles of ageing, including a fear that returning home puts them at risk of being targeted as witches.
Arts-in-Action serves as a global blueprint for arts-based interventions against violence.
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At a Glance
Project Focus
Witchcraft-related violence, ageism, and gender-based violence
Current expansion
10 additional chiefdoms across the Eastern Cape
Women mobilised
150 older women through newly established choirs
Aim
To prevent witchcraft-related violence in the Eastern Cape
Original site
AmaZizi chiefdom, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Reach
Over 60 villages and over 1-million new users and audiences
Method
Singing, song-writing, peer support, public performance, community dialogue, and policy engagement
Core intervention
Community-led choirs that transform women’s lived experiences into songs of resistance, healing, and public education.
Background & Insights
Understanding the Context: Witchcraft & Ageism
Witchcraft accusations across rural sub-Saharan Africa are a dangerous intersection of culture and poverty, where vulnerable older women are frequently scapegoated for community misfortunes. Driven by traditional beliefs, financial strains, and gender bias, these accusations strip elderly women of their safety, autonomy, and human rights.
Accusations of witchcraft frequently lead to violence, with older women the frequent targets. Physical features common to ageing — wrinkled skin, thinning hair, missing teeth — when associated with women, are routinely equated with “being a witch”. If accused, these women are pushed into social isolation, many beaten, maimed, raped, or murdered.
In many rural communities, the physical realities of growing older are tragically misunderstood. Wrinkles, drooping skin, and deteriorating health are often viewed as signs of dark magic, while cognitive conditions like dementia are mistaken for demonic possession.
When tragedy strikes — such as failed crops, sudden illness, or financial hardship — communities look for someone to blame. Older women, particularly widows who rely on their families for survival, are the easiest targets. When younger relatives feel the burden of caring for an elder, an accusation of witchcraft is sometimes used to ostracize the woman and escape financial responsibility.
Historically, colonial and post-colonial policies stripped women of legal protections and property rights, making violence against older women the norm. Today, a heavy taboo silences victims. Speaking up is often viewed as disrespectful to community traditions, leaving these women isolated and terrified in their own homes.
Understanding this complex issue requires both protecting vulnerable elders and changing the deeply rooted social norms that put them at risk.
Why Singing?
Using the Arts to Fight Ageism
Elderly women in South Africa frequently face isolation due to harmful witchcraft accusations. This programme serves as a direct remedy to that emotional and social estrangement by turning song into social action.
Singing is regarded as among the most accessible mediums of art and healing: its capacity for relieving stress and counteracting anxiety are well known. Singing also builds community amongst participants: it is a team-building activity. If you sing alone, nerves or self-consciousness can arise. Yet collective singing generates this almost magical sense of self-confidence, among both the performers and listeners.
The choirs we are launching for elderly women in the Eastern Cape and Johannesburg provide a vital space for restoring dignity and dismantling stigmas associated with ageism. They importantly establish a much-needed space for building community among the women, while serving as platforms for advocacy to amplify their voices and champion their rights.
The women are attaching their own lyrics to the songs, lyrics that directly target gender-based violence, witchcraft attacks, and ageism. Their public performances, as a result, help change minds by educating the public about ageing and the impact of witchcraft accusations.
"Music is food for the soul. We sing in happiness and we sing in misery."
Choir Participant
"I have a community to rely on for support."
Choir Participant
Our Methodology
The Arts-in-Action singing-intervention is built around participation, community knowledge, and sustainability.
The methodology is a patchwork of methods: singing, discussion-groups, song-writing, public performance, and peer support - that intuitively fit together and address a mixture of needs simultaneously. Rehearsals draw women out of social isolation, while song-writing workshops provide opportunities to process and express trauma. Performances then become occasions to educate the public about the ageing process and dispel myths around witchcraft.
Let’s Work Together
Get in touch so we can start working together.
