On 7 March 1994, five young women - Sivagamy Govender (17), Riana Jacobs (15), Heather Leite (17), Reshoketswe (Shoki) Maredi (21), Busi Mthimunye (19) - and I met with Athol Fugard around a table at the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg. None of us knew what to expect, our only clue to the work that lay ahead of us was Fugard's intent - ‘I made an act of faith. I said to myself “I'm going to get those five young women to lead me into my country's future”,’ he had said.

‘There is something bigger than us involved here. If we can understand what ignorance we have, and then discover how to overcome it, if the five of you can do that, then so can this country,’ he told them.

And so we began our journey into what Athol described as ‘territory I have never been in before'.

In that opening statement Athol told the girls: Today is the start of a journey. From this moment forward, we are a family. If we want to live that word, if we truly want to realise that dream, then we have to obey the demands of honesty and trust. They are the two qualities upon which a family is based. Our work demands that we trust one another enough to talk openly about our lives.'

Almost as an afterthought, Athol asked the group to keep journals, to write down their daily thoughts and feelings - these journals proved to be our entry into their lives.

Athol's determination not to encroach on the girls’ study time meant that our time together was very limited. We met four times a week for only a couple of hours at a time. To complicate matters, the political unrest in Johannesburg at the time was relentless and many of our sessions were cancelled because of the threat of violence. Another problem was the erratic public transport service, upon which four of the five girls relied.

Of the five young women around that table, two of them - Gamy and Riana - had never stood on a stage. That was immaterial. As Athol had told them on that first day, ‘this project is about the person you are, not the actress you want to be. There is nothing that could disappoint me, bar dishonesty.’