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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Thank you for your support and thank you for being there, your support provides KTD196 with the confidence to continue to plan effectively and to maximise your support. You are awesome, really.
I want to especially thank all those people who support KTD196 on a monthly basis, by creating a monthly donation program you bring financial stability to KTD196 which in turn enables us to confidently plan effectively throughout the year. Thank you so much for being there.
Last year I spoke a lot about the Children's Rights Situational Analysis (CRSA) we performed, looking specifically at Child Participation within the family, school and community. Through this long drawn out research we realised that children do not have a voice at any of these levels. The children are not seen or heard.
With our partner Kindernothilfe (KNH), we have prepared a 5year plan, based on the CRSA to address the issue of Child Participation and to create a platform for children's voices to be heard. Now this is a Children's Right to be heard, to be listened to, and given the discussions we had with many children and their duty bearers (those who are responsible to ensure children's voices are heard) we knew this was an area we wanted to change.
Imagine you are 9yrs old boy and have to herd a group of fully grown cows, on your own. That is your job. Apart from the danger aspect of being kicked or gored, how is a 9yr old supposed to keep a dozen cows from wandering away, getting into a neighbours crops, or walking on the road and being struck by vehicles, and yet this is what kids have to do. No one considers the child, his abilities, or his wants.
Imagine you are a 9yr old girl and you have to collect 80litres of water a day from the local stream or if you are lucky enough, a tap. I struggle as an adult to lift 20kgs but to carry 80litres, sometimes walking 2-3kms with each load. Again no one considers the child, her abilities or her wants.
At school we have issues with gang violence, drugs, rape, the children don’t have a voice to share their fears, to have adults listen to the possible solutions children may have, there is nowhere for them to lodge complaints even anonymously, so that teachers who meter out corporal punishment or exchange sex for grades are reported. The children just have to be quiet, not make a fuss, and take the abuse.
In the communities, each community holds meetings but children are not allowed to participate. They are bullied by community members frequently for being foreign nationals, or if they are considered stupid, slow learners, or come from poor families. Again there is no recourse for the children. No one protects the children.
Through the CRSA we identified all of these issues and KTD196 has determined we want to address the issue of lack of child participation within the home, school and community. In fact, we have already started. This week Elizabeth and Rosemary has started training a group of parents in Journey of Life and Children's Rights for 3days. During this training the parents will be tasked to communicate with their children, to really listen to what their children are saying, they will understand their roles as duty bearers and how to assist the children to find their voices.
Often we find that parents say their children are disrespectful towards their parents, in reality parents don’t listen to their children, call them names, belittle them, chase them, are rude to them. Through this training, as a starting point, we are going to change the lived experience of many children, once we have the parents on side, we will use the parents to assist us with changing the way in which schools and the local communities operate. It will be an ongoing process over 5yrs.
Ultimately, we want children to use their voices, to be heard and have adults act upon their concerns, this is a huge task, but through this process, we will reduce abuse experienced at home, school and in their communities. That adults will have compassion, concern and be willing to champion their children to other adults.
I have included the CRSA below in case you are interested. It is a heavy read but I hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me on director@keepthedream196.com
Thank you once again for your support, you mean the world to us and our kids.
Blessings
Louise
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My goodness, we are at the end of the first quarter already. Man, so much has been happening it’s unbelievable. This month we are hosting the Self Help Group Training for South Africa, the management team from our donors Dlalanathi are bringing the International Malawian based trainer for SHG, SHG Project Officers and Community Facilitators from Kwazulu Natal and Limpopo to Tzaneen for training and site visits because KTD196 is doing so well with this project. We are doing all the behind the scene’s logistics i.e. venue, accommodation, catering, transferring etc. for the two weeks the folk are here.
As part of the site visits they will be visiting some of our groups, meeting with the Induna’s, getting a feel for the area. The training we all will be receiving will be around the next level of SHG development which is called CLA, creating Clusters of SHG groups with representatives of 10 to 12groups attending CLA meetings and starting to see advocacy as a tool to claim services from the municipality but also the province. This is where we see the women working, not just to alleviate their own financial issues but to use human rights initiatives to realise their rights in this nation.
This month we are also preparing for The COLOR Run on 1st April 2023, this run will focus particularly on Child Protection and Child Participation, so we will use it as a platform in the villages and scout groups to promote these two issues with the children, who in turn will use the information and share the information with the adults as they run through Shiluvane Village. The children will engage with adults, peel off from the pack running, spend time sharing their knowledge and their hearts. Then catch up to the main group. They will be carrying banner to raise awareness and drawn those interested back to the soccer field to hear a presentation by KTD196 on Children’s Rights, Child Protection and Child Participation.
We are also performing Star Assessments, that is where we go to every group in the province during March and do our first assessments of each Cub Pack, Scout Group, and Rover Crew. The groups are given the feedback so they know what needs to be changed, targeted or added to their program over the course of the year. The Final assessment is completed in November.
To give you an idea, in 2022 we achieved 3 Gold Troop (large group of kids) awards and 11 Silver awards. However, the patrols (small groups of kids inside a large group of kids) achieved 9 Gold Patrols Awards and 9 Silver Patrol Awards. Which is fabulous given we were still battling with the residual effects of Covid and not being able to easily go camping.
We also have our 5-10 children’s groups running daily throughout the month of course. Those happen continuously and is the back bone of KTD196.
We are able to do these activities because of your support. You are our partners in these activities. Your financial support goes a long way in subsidizing our work, none of the traditional donors we do have cover all the costs of the programs we run, the supplementary support comes from you. Your support is essential. Thank you is just such a shallow word to convey how I, how we, feel about you. You are our community base; we need you to be able to function.
I hope this snapshot for the month of March has left you excited and satisfied regarding what we are doing on your behalf. I said before, if anyone finds themselves in South Africa and would like to see first-hand what we are doing, that would be amazing.
Blessings to you and your family,
Please if you have any questions, I am happy to respond on director@keepthedream196.com
Louise
Links:
Thank you for being a part of the team! THANK YOU for choosing to make a difference to the children we serve! I really and truly believe that the work we are doing with the children is shaping the future for the nation of South Africa. We are raising up young men and women who will not accept the status quo, we are raising up leaders who will not accept corruption and chaos as a way to govern. Together we are changing the face of this nation, one child at a time.
You are an integral part of this change.
I want to share about our plans for the next 5years in particular. So that you can see the impact of the work we are doing as well.
Self Help Groups (SHG’s) are funded to continue till 2026. Each year we need to start 25groups of between 15-20women who are the poorest of the poor. That equates to between 1,875 to 2,500 families are going to be benefitting from this program of savings and loans with the view to create small businesses who employ others in their communities. With more money comes more options for people. They will no longer need to beg for food or money for school for their children but provide in their own right and have the cash flow to start small enterprises. Currently, we have 34 groups in process.
Last year I shared about the Children’s Rights Situational Analysis (CRSA), that took us a year to complete, I have attached it below for those who are interested in the results. Anyway, we will be training 7 groups of parents; plus, working into 7schools with the teachers, principals and district circuit managers; and the Induna’s (village leaders plus the Chief) to promote child participation at home, school through (Learner Representative Councils) and within the community because at the moment, the children don’t have any voice.
The children all identified issues in the CRSA regarding abuse experienced, fears that they have regarding their safety at school and in the communities where they live. This is what we are wanting to address but first we have to prepare the ground to hear their voices, then to assist the adults in understanding why their voices are so valuable and what their roles are as duty bearers to meet the needs of their children. This is going to be a long term investment in their futures and hopefully will have the short term impact of resolving the abuse and fears the children currently have.
On my agenda, I want to assist the undocumented foreign nationals, especially those children/adults who have been born in this country and have been refused citizenship, which is a basic human right. I have reached out to some organizations who are specialists in this area so that the process will go as smoothly as possible.
We will be continuing with our Children’s Program and expanding the program with the addition of two more young men to be Field Officers in the interim. We will gauge their effectiveness and move from there.
Well we certainly have our work cut out for us. We have partial funding for all of this work, through GG you are contributing to the funding as well. I hope this excites you as we navigate the next 5years. It is fairly daunting dealing with culture and indifference, (the adults where their roles as duty bearers is concerned) however the kids and you give us the strength to move forward on their behalf to see real change in their lives.
Thank you so much for being a part of the change. You are phenomenal. That is not hyperbole, that is the truth. We could not achieve what we do, without YOU!
Nkomo swenene Ngopfu! (thank you so much)
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Avuxeni, Minjani? Umfekile minjane!
Hello, How are you? I am well!
Thank you for being a part of our success, thank you for being there for the children and ladies of KTD196 and welcome to the Community.
Every week I draw from the happenings at KTD196 to create a GG report for you to understand the work we do, and the impact we have. I try to make it encouraging and informational as well as letting you know about the workings of KTD196 on a human level.
This week, I can't do that. This week I am so frustrated and sad. I want to share with you regarding some of the injustices that our kids face as part of their everyday lives.
Recently, we decided to do some succession planning for lower level staff. We have 5 ladies that work in the field everyday walking from village to village and running the scouts program on behalf of KTD196. These ladies are predominantly over 50yrs of age, and they have been working with us upto 15yrs. However, that is not sustainable when for example, the weather yesterday was 44C or 111 degrees fahrenheit, and they had to walk to the different villages, such is their mammoth committment.
So, we have identified 3young men aged between 18-20yrs, 2 of whom grew up in the program and the 3rd has such heart to work with children and be a part of KTD196 that he was a no brainer to bring on team.
This all sounds great, I agree. Sadly, one of the young men whom I shall call Justice is a foreign national. His parents escaped the war in Mozambique in the late 1990s and came to South Africa. Justice and his siblings were born in 2000-2010. There are 6 of them, all South African born, but none have identity documents. Justice's father passed away, he was the only one with documents. Now the family are undocumented. According to legislation, if the father was alive they could all apply for the ID required. There is no other way for them to become legal residents.
The impact of this is they are able to receive health care at local clinics if there is a nurse who is sympathetic, they were able to go to school but not allowed to graduate high school, Justice received 4distinctions but cannot go on to University. He cannot open a bank account, get a job, or contribute to society in a formal manner because he is undocumented.
I also have been the victim of an unjust and corrupt system as a foreigner, and it required a National Class Action against Home Affairs for the Constitutional Court to demand Home Affairs to process 400 outstanding work permit applications dated over a period of 4years. We won the case 2018, but still over 100 people are living in limbo, classed as legal illegals, 5years later. They are not allowed to work, enter into contracts, leave the country or risk being banned for 5years. During this time I could not renew my licence, vehicle registration, have a cell phone contract etc. I was fortunate, I had the resources to be a part of the class action. Justice does not.
Here is a young man that is at the start of his adulthood, wanting to contribute to the building of South Africa and to support his family and he is prevented from doing so by the current Immigration Laws. There is also a lot of xenophobia in this nation with frequent riots happening where foreign nationals are targeted, whether they have the correct visa's or not.
Sadly, he is one of many, trapped in limbo as a non-person. His whole family is condemned to the shadows. Fortunately his mother is a part of our SHG program so the family have hope, but they have to remain under the radar.
I know this wont be a popular post because of the many current refugee crises various nations are experiencing, however its important that you understand the context in which we work. The frustrations that we deal with on a daily basis. Often I question myself, how far would I go to protect my family, would I be willing, as is the case in the Ukraine, to pack up and leave my nation and become and international refugee? Would I leave the decimated nation of Zimbabwe so that my children would have a future? How far would you go to protect your family? I can only imagine the fear of leaving all that you know behind you, to an uncertain future.
We will continue to fight for Justice and others like him so that he can come out of the shadows.
I want to thank you for reading this. Please if you would like to comment or respond you are welcome to email me at director@keepthedream196.com
Louise
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