Excerpt from A Footprint of Roses

GRACE: Don’t you think it strange how we each of us is born into a particular time and place without a choice?  Then, after that, there’s nothing but choices.  Let me ask you, if it could have been your choice – where you were born, I mean – where would you have opted for?

CONSTANCE: (HESITATES): It would always be Zimbabwe.  I’m proud to be Zimbabwean.  It just shouldn’t be like this …

GRACE: (PATS HER HAND): I know.  Believe me, I know.  But this is your place – where your life will make a difference.  Think of the most enormous revolution you can imagine – if you look harder, you’ll see it was made up of billions of tiny changes.  It will come.   We must just do what we can do and be patient. 

About A Footprint of Roses

The play explores the plight of the women of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise), a women’s civil movement in Zimbabwe.  The women of WOZA protested each Valentine’s Day against the civil rights abuses they were enduring under Mugabe’s rule. They handed out roses as a symbol of their loving and peaceful intentions, but were often beaten and imprisoned by the police at Mugabe’s behest. I volunteered for Amnesty International when I lived in Dublin and was a member of the Zimbabwe group.  We carried out advocacy work to highlight the human rights abuses occurring under Mugabe. Jenni Williams, WOZA’s leader and recipient of the US government’s International Women of Courage Award in 2007, sent a videoed message of thanks for the play.

RECORDING: Molesworth Hall, Dublin, 2008 
Filmed in three parts by Instigator Films

Cast for the recorded performance:

GRACE                  Leah Flynn
CONSTANCE       Donna Anita Nikolaisen
MARY                   Elizabeth Suh
POLICEMAN       James Akpotor
DIRECTOR           Catherine McFadden

This cast and director toured with the play to perform at Molesworth Hall and Mountjoy Women’s Prison in Dublin, and the Kinsale Arts Festival in Cork.  The Molesworth Hall performance was featured on RTE Radio One’s The Arts Show.

The play was also performed at Amnesty International’s Annual Conference at the Kingsley Hotel in Cork, and by UCC’s Amnesty Group at UCC.  My travel to the UK to introduce a showing of the recording to an Amnesty Group in Worthing was funded by Amnesty. It was also performed in the US and France.