Bullying is a form of mental torture that results in mental illness. I should know. I was mercilessly bullied as a child, which led to feeling excluded, having low self worth and general sadness and loneliness.

I grew up in a beautiful village in a province called Limpopo in the north of South Africa. My village is called Ha-Masia, and you will find it in what is considered the country’s tropical orchard.

As everyone who knows me will know, my great grandmother, my Gugu, was the woman who had the greatest influence on my life. She had no formal schooling, no university education. In fact, Gugu could not read or write, but she knew what was important in life.

It was from this wizened wise woman who raised me that my hunger for knowledge came. From her came my thirst for justice and basic human rights. She made me laugh.

I was a happy child, known for my sunny disposition. The fact that I sang everywhere I went earned me the additional moniker “Happy” Shudu.

But that happiness was short lived when I had to go away to school, to a place where the children did not speak my language, and who made fun of the way I looked and the way I spoke. As a little girl, I’d been proud of my hair worn in a large, natural afro. But the kids at my school were so cruel that in the end, I cut my hair off, and determined never to grow it again.

So began many years of my being desperately unhappy. I was lonely. I was sad. I felt excluded. I felt unworthy. And all because I was bullied and undermined and told that I was not worthy. I was left out and made to feel different.

I never, ever wanted another child to feel like I felt and promised my teenage self that I would one day tell the story of my years of misery.

I wanted everyone to know of the pain that bullying causes, how children suffer, often in silence. I wanted to let people know what it feels like to disappear into yourself, how terrifying it is to let yourself be seen or heard.

When I was crowned Miss South Africa 2020, I knew that this would be the opportunity to share my experience and put bullying under the spotlight.

I wanted children to realise that they were free to report bullying.

I wanted to give parents the chance to recognise bullying.

I wanted to help give teachers the tools to do act on bullying. And so I wrote a book called Shudu Finds Her Magic.

It charts the story of my young life, how one act of kindness saved me from despair.
Imagine my surprise, and delight, when this book moved to the number one best selling children’s book in South Africa within two weeks.

I went on road to speak to kids everywhere.

My book tour took me across South Africa, to rural schools were we had readings under a tree on the dusty school grounds; to impoverished communities, to schools where privileged children are sent to learn.

Bullying is the great leveller and bullies come from all strata of society.

I spoke to parents, to teachers, to children who had been bullied, to some children who confessed to being bullies. It was the most uplifting time of my life: I was empowering those who believed they were helpless and unable to do anything to change their situation.

I was giddy with excitement as I FINALLY realised something that my great grandmother had impressed on me from an early age: Speak up. Speak out. Be heard. You WILL make a difference.

I suppose my story is that you can have it all; that beauty that comes from within shows its light on the outside; that if you are determined to change something, all you have to do is set you mind to it and work tirelessly to effect the change you want to see.

My story includes the importance of kindness, and self-belief. But most of all, my story tells of the critical role that education plays – especially in the lives of girls and women.