LEAD MAGAZINE | 2019
a South African company, working globally
– Rehana will personally work with you to
co-create interventions that respond to the
specific needs of your company/ organisation/
institution. The Barefoot Facilitator’s founding
philosophy is woven consciously through the
work that Rehana delivers. Moreover, Rehana’s
product offerings are deeply entrenched in her
uniquely personal experience.
“Most of my time in South Africa has been
spent in Johannesburg, and half of it in one
of the slums of that city of gold. No one, I
think, could call Johannesburg a lovely place.
It is too stark and too uncompromising: too
lacking in any softness of light and shade: too
overwhelmingly and blatantly the centre of
the Witwatersrand, to have much loveliness….
And I have come to love the rolling country of
the high-veldt round the city, stretching away
to the Magaliesburg mountains and giving to
Johannesburg a setting which belongs to few
cities in the world. Of the beauty of its rich
homes and gardens I will not write: for I have
never been able to see the beauty without
remembering the corrugated-iron shacks and
the muddy yards where our African people
live.” Father Trevor Huddleston, Naught For
Your Comfort, Collins, 1956
Father Trevor Huddleston was born in 1913,
I was born in 1969. He was born in England,
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
He was an Anglican priest, I am a Muslim
woman. Yet, every time, I read his words or
visit the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre
in Sophiatown, Johannesburg – I am left in awe
of his deep love for his fellow human-beings
and a community who were forcibly removed
but whose roots had run too deep for the
memories to be erased.
We are living in a rapidly urbanising world and
the anonymity that often accompanies big city
living. As inequality grows, natural resources
deplete and the quest for mere survival grows
stronger – our cities have become the ideal
breeding grounds to feed a growing trend
of othering and “enemifying” where human-
beings are viewed as problems and burdens
rather than beings with agency and potential.
We are encouraged by populist politicians to
deepen the rhetoric of othering – whether on
the basis of race, class, religion or nationality.
Our cities are rife with all that creates an
atmosphere of fear and mistrust.
Big cities by their nature are frenetic in pace
and often leave little time for meaningful
and deep connection with other human-
beings or with mother nature. If you are
looking for a partner with an understanding
of the complexity of convening meaningful
conversations and experiences across divides
– The Barefoot Facilitator is well-equipped to
assist your organisation / institution. As the
founder/owner of The Barefoot Facilitator,
I was blessed with opportunity between
2006 and 2011 to be entrusted with making
a small contribution to reversing the legacy
of apartheid spatial planning and restoring
dignity in the daily commute of people through
leading the team that delivered Africa’s first
full Bus Rapid Transit system – Rea Vaya. For
many involved with this project it went beyond
stations and buses and some even paid with
their very lives to enable it to be birthed into
the landscape of Johannesburg. It represented
knitting together communities over dividing
them. It created the space for people rather
than cars. It was an opportunity for a CEO
and general worker to commute together and
share space and stories. It was about creating
an alternative to a growing one person, one
car culture that is inconsiderate of how we
use space, that leaves people feeling more
isolated from each other and that pollutes air.
Rea Vaya was about transforming economic
ownership in the transport sector and
providing entrepreneurs from the minibus taxi
sector the opportunity to take their rightful
places in provision of public transport. Whilst
it was linked to Johannesburg’s hosting of the
2010 FIFA World Cup it was amongst a range
of legacy projects – including the planting
of 200 000 trees in the southern areas of
Johannesburg, the conversion of single sex
male hostels into family units and the cleaning
of river courses – all of which had less to do
with a game of football and a lot more to do
with changing the nature of how we interact
in our cities.
Yet, by 2013, my own heart was creating
discomfort for me about the divisiveness
that characterised our political landscape. I
was increasingly impatient with the sluggish
attitude of some in the City of Johannesburg
administration protected from the realities
outside in the comforts and trappings of
the corridors of power. So, after much soul-
searching, I resigned in February 2013 and
cashed in my pension-fund with no plan for
what I would do next.
That decision, to leave behind the known
and venture into unchartered territory, has
brought me amazing gifts and opportunities.
Literally learning how to “Rock Your Life”, be
present and change the ways in which I talk
and listen. In the past 5 years I have dared to
show-up authentically and it has led to deep
and meaningful engagements in which I have
had the opportunity to meet amazing people
from across the world who are showing an
alternative way. I have experienced that
alternative economic models – “Wellbeing
Economies for Africa” are possible and that we
can break our obsession with GDP and growth
and begin to shape an economic system which
creates value for the categories of caring and
giving which go unnoticed and unmeasured
in society. My work with Reos Partners and
the Southern African Food Lab has been eye-
opening on the need for us as city-dwellers
to rethink our relationship with food and the
futures of food and the extent to which we
are depleting our soil. I have learnt about the
many across continents who are reimagining
how we source energy for basic needs through
tapping into the gifts that nature has bestowed
us with and simultaneously drive community
solutions to their own needs. Travelling to
Bhutan has given me insights into business
leaders and governments who are developing
alternative measurement systems that
factor in time-use, respect for cultural and
indigenous knowledge and actively promote
happiness and wellbeing. I have met and
worked with passionate individuals from
NGOs to multilateral financing institutions and
multi-national corporations all working hard to
effect change firstly in themselves and then in
the systems they work in.
I have actively in this period taken a break
from mainstream media and whilst I am
aware of a growing narrative of polarisation
and maximum me in our discourse, I have
felt very humbled to actively be in spaces
with people who are seeing beyond division
to unity, beyond despair to hope, beyond
fear to love. A beautiful unveiling of a church
bell of a former congregation of a church
happening in a mosque, to a group of women
travelling together from Sandton to Soweto,
to a Mathematics lecturer bringing together
literary narratives of Muslim women, to
investment bankers learning from migrants on
the streets and squares of Fordsburg – the past
few years have made abundantly clear to me
the importance of actively setting up different
ways of seeing each other, the challenges we
face and the things we are capable of doing
together.
The creation of “The Barefoot Facilitator”,
has been an opportunity, to weave together
many strands of my own life story and
create opportunities for others to engage in
meaningful conversations, experiences and
spark the ideas and seed the actions that
change the systems we have created. My work
has reaffirmed my belief that if we are to live
together in big cities – we can create a sense of
community, we can choose to know each other
beyond the superficial, we can venture beyond
our fears and reconnect with the love in our
hearts. Whilst big cities are filled with noise,
we have the ability to Shhh – bring soul, heart,
head and hands together in how we navigate
our being in big cities. We can become the big
city lights and lighthouses that ground those
around us to stay connected to what truly
brings meaning to life.
Rehana has been invited to various local and international platforms to share from the heart. Her assignments have
included amongst others: wellbeing economies, food systems, eco-mobility, place-making and staying connected to nature
in rapidly urbanizing contexts. Known as the ‘barefoot facilitator, her style is characterized by bringing the richness of her
life experiences authentically into her work – from retreats in Rajasthan, to business principles from Bhutan, to inter-faith/
inter-cultural tour of Turkey. She combines her professional training in education, with her years of community activism and
a 13 year stint in local government with the deep learning she has gained from the opportunities that life has brought to her.
www.thebarefootfacilitator.co.za
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