A recent project aimed at highlighting the issue of homelessness in South Africa has seen the Denis Hurley Centre team up with the Daily Maverick and Story Sessions to present Homeless 101.
Intended to be an ‘introduction’ to the topic of homelessness as a social issue, the project pairs photographic portraits with stories of homeless people, as told by themselves. The essays are heartbreaking to read, not because of the hopelessness of the subjects, but because they illustrate the lack of care and basic respect that most people show towards people living on the street. The project aims to counter this attitude by putting a face, and importantly a story, to the estimated four thousand people who live on the streets of Durban.
This past Tuesday, Story Sessions hosted an exhibition of the portraits taken by Obakeng Molepe as part of the Homeless 101 project. There are also plans to team up with a local chain of restaurants, so that the images, and the stories, can be experienced by a wider public audience.
The Denis Hurley Centre forms part of the Durban Liberation Heritage Route