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At the recent Action for a Safe SA Convention, Yvette Geyer spoke to some of the participants and asked them what the Convention meant to them, and what they were planning to do to make South Africa a safe place to live in. See the interviews here.
Interviews by Yvette Geyer, Photos by Jaco Roets
Interview 1  Name: Brian Jones
Province: KZN
Capacity: SA CAN- www.sacan.co.za
What is the convention about for you?
I recognise the power and potential in Action for a Safe South Africa, and as a role player in my area with a National vision, my team and I will do what ever we can to support it.
How do you hope to make a difference and make SA safe place?
Crime has evolved and perpetrators have become more advanced in their strategies, unfortunately the companies in whom the public has placed a massive spend, to address crime, no longer hold the solution. Our organization, SA CAN (Hillcrest, KZN) shares this view with Action for a Safe South Africa. We need to convert massive spend on reactive services, with limited results, into investment in proactive community based strategies, giving real results.
This covers a number of areas that can make a difference, all mobilizing the community on different levels.
A possibility worth exploring is the development of a non profit security company which fosters good relationships with the public, the SAPS and NGO’s.
In our area alone there is a R7,4 million monthly spend in the reactive security industry. While this obviously has its place, too much hope is placed in it! We need to focus on crime prevention on a social level.
The bridge between the community and the SAPS needs to be built in order to form an effective working relationship. The SAPS is the only legal body able to make arrests and process criminals to court. SA CAN working alongside the SAPS, aims to use the eyes and ears of the general public to empower effective community policing.
SA CAN team includes a number of individuals who have been affected by crime and are passionate about mobilizing South Africans positively against crime. One example is Jes Foord, 21 year old gang rape survivor whom we are sponsoring whilst she establishes her rape support centre (POWAR – Protect Our Woman Against Rape) that’s main focus is been aimed at prevention rather than reaction.
What advice do have for others wanting to make a difference?
Do not be afraid of change, making bold decisions and become part of the solution. Although emotions run high, we cannot leave this up to others. We MUST take the lead in the role of being a participating responsible citizen! There are solutions and although they may not be gold medal yet, they have proved to be stepping in the right direction and are producing results.
VISIT:
How can you make a change? www.itstartswithyou.co.za
For a dose of good news view www.sagoodnews.co.za
To see what Jes Foord is up to www.powar.co.za
A simple but immediate way to bring about change www.sayhello.co.za
Or contact us on 0861 623 646 www.sacan.co.za , be proudly South African and become part of a growing network against crime in South Africa.
Interview 2
Name: Helene Artz and Leston Lawn
Province: Gauteng
Capacity: Experiential Marketing Consultant and Medical Doctor
What is this conversation about for you?
Finding practical solutions for a Safe South Africa. To mobilise and leverage resources within communities.
How do you hope to make a difference and make South Africa a Safe Place?
By changing people’s perceptions concerning hopelessness and their involvement within their communities. To participate in communicating/marketing the ways and means of creating a Safe South Africa.
What are you going to do and what should others do?
We will join a group – select a project and create new projects
We intend to create and contribute to creating a community in which EVERY South African can join together and find information as to what they can do in their specific community.
Interview 3 Name: Jabulani Radebe
Province: Gauteng
Capacity: Former Convicted Offenders Development Initiative
What is this conversation about for you?
Civil society joining hands to create a Safe South Africa with sustainable solutions to address crime, offenders and the needs of victims
How do you hope to make a difference and make South Africa a Safe Place?
By making sure that I personally rehabilitate offenders and ex-offenders and creating employment opportunities for them
What advice would you give others?
Take offenders and ex-offenders and see them as human beings who have hopes, dreams and fears like all of us. They also have a role to play.
Interview 4  Name: Alan Boesak
Province: Western Cape
Capacity: Uniting Reform Church of Africa
What is this conversation about for you?
It’s about civil society realising its responsibility and its potential. Over the last four days we have seen that this does exist and that people are concerned about realising the importance that we do it ourselves and then build partnerships
How do you hope to make a difference and make South Africa a Safe Place?
By taking the message to all platforms that I engage with – churches, other faith based institutions, communities and universities. We are anyway talking about re-energising society, about reclaiming democracy – not only in the field of safety but in relation to the broader values that have previously struggled for. This conversation fits in well as crime fundamentally undermines the values of democracy.
What advice do you have for others?
By knowing that each one of us CAN – if we want to; not only drawing on the inevitability of faith; but knowing that this is a place that we want our children to grow up in as well as for us as men and women to live our life in.
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