Goodbye gun gang. Hello University.

Next stop on this visit: Johannesburg and the Ekupholeni Mental Health Centre run by the saintly Antje. Over the years she has run therapy groups for hundreds of people – those abused and those who perpetrate violence.

One success story is a boy who fell into gun crime after being orphaned at the age of 10. He and his gang were robbing trains at gunpoint before he joined the Ghetto Boys, the programme using football to divert young men away from crime. He eventually returned to school and is now at Pretoria University studying civil engineering.  

One woman was shot in the chest by her husband. After extensive surgery she went home, salvaged her children and booted her husband out. Her husband wasn’t charged because she refused to testify. Her price is that he goes to the men’s domestic violence group and has finally disclosed that he was raped and beaten repeatedly as a small child. 

These two stories exemplify the lives of so many – complex, convoluted, dysfunctional and repetitive, all stemming from a childhood of abuse, neglect, violence and lack of care. 

We will continue to support Ekupholeni in their work helping victims and deflecting abusers. 

We also caught up with Anne Parker, who provides puppet shows to help pre-school children protect themselves from harm. Her assistant, Nichole, tells the most unnerving story of her own childhood – the unwanted child of a teenage mother, raped at 5 years old, neglected and later molested. She worked to put herself through university and trained and practiced as a teacher. Anne and Nichole want to help create a generation of children throughout South Africa who have not been abused - not a small ambition.    

They are currently in the process of writing and shooting a series of TV programmes for showing on public television and in schools. We have funded the equipment - sound system, puppets, puppet staging, MP3 player and carry bags - for Nichole to go out with the puppet show to wherever she is asked. Already she has been to schools and corporate employer crèches. This is an amazing initiative and deserves every success.