By Louise and the KTD196 Dream Team | Director
Living in South Africa is a challenge, we are constantly bombarded with the recent news of the latest victims of horrific crimes. Often, it is children and women that bear the brunt of the crime. I decided to research more thoroughly the demographics of crime and what I found has made my heartache and also made me even more determined to continue pushing Keep The Dream196 and our mission. I make no apologies for asking for your help.
Did you know
- 40% of all sexual assaults happen in the home!
- 33% of all common assaults happen in the home
- 82 people are killed each day in South Africa and mainly close or at home
That is a total of 29,930 murders per year in 2022.
Most of the violence is perpetrated on single female black African's by youth aged between 15-24yrs of age!
Children and youth are 70% more likely to be victims and perpetrators of crime!
Our kids are growing up where violence is normal! Violence begets violence. Why are we so surprised about crime levels when violence is socialised within the home? 38% of all children experience violence, sexual assault and robbery in their own homes! 76% of youth offenders had experienced themselves being victims of violent crimes.
Surprisingly home, schools and social environments which should be places of safety and security are actually the source of violence where this behaviour is internalised. As I shared earlier this month, we are working with parents, schools, and communities to bring about change.
It breaks my heart hearing those statistics, each number is a child, some one’s son or daughter. If we don’t Build Tomorrow Today, Tomorrow will be hell.
Why am I focussed on violence and crime this week? Saturday afternoon, one of our kids, Thulani, who had been in the program for over 10years was walking home, in fact he was across the road from where the scouts meet in his village, when he was held up at gun point and shot in the stomach. In the end all he had was a cell phone, no money, and they left the phone. He is still in hospital; they are watching to see if he develops sepsis. He was less than a kilometre from home. He could have died, last week someone in the same village was shot and killed. It’s a small village with a couple of hundred houses. Usually very peaceful, but this is what is happening now, this is what the children are facing.
How can you help? The need for our program is urgent!
I am sorry, usually my posts are more positive and up beat but as you can imagine this has affected us all. Thank God he is alive and ok, it could have been very different.
Louise
ps you are welcome to send Thulani a message via our website, we will ensure that he gets your messages!
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