Limpopo-born Tsakani Mkhari is taking the fight against gender-based violence (GBV), declared a pandemic by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2021, to another level.
Through Hope Givers Foundation, a non-government organisation she founded eight years ago, Mkhari has rolled up her sleeves to fight the scourge using an initiative called Raising Legends.
She said although she has been proactively fighting GBV, inequality, mental health, and substance abuse by empowering and grooming boys and young men through the initiative for the past five years, this year’s campaign will culminate in a ceremony to award men who are making a difference in their communities and putting a dent on the pandemic.
“Raising Legends is an initiative aimed at supporting, embracing, grooming and giving a boy child and young men in general a platform to address day-to-day challenges. Men face the struggles as women if not more,” said Mkhari.
“We have initiatives that take a girl child to school and empower her, which is not wrong at all. The same thing must be done for a boy child so that the two can co-exist. We saw a need to put interventions in place, groom and support a boy child while also celebrating those men who are making a difference in their communities by honouring them with Raising Legends awards.”
The awards, which will be held on June 25 at the Royal Khalanga in Nwamitwa outside Tzaneen, will be attended by local, national and international participants including popular football analyst Christophe Bongo and soccer legend Lucas Radebe.
The brave 38-year-old go-getter is not shy to say she believes in the importance of empowering boys from a young age.
“So we can build and live in a society free of gender-based violence. It will not take a day or a hashtag to teach a grown man how to treat a woman right if he was not taught from a young age.
“Making noise and creating hashtags whenever we have a victim of gender-based violence will not uproot this demon. We have a duty to take care of our boys, they matter,” said Mkhari, a mother of two daughters from Tzaneen.
Presenting the fourth-quarter crime statistics for January to March 2022, Police Minister Bheki Cele said the crime rate has ballooned to alarming proportions, noting that sexual offences have increased by 13.7 after 10 818 people were raped in the country during the reporting period.
Cele added that about half of the cases, a staggering 4 653 rapes, took place at the home of the rape victim or that of the rapist. Cele also shared that 2 268 people were murdered around the country during the first three months of the year.
For more business news from Sunday World, click here.
Follow @SundayWorldZA on Twitter and @sundayworldza on Instagram, or like our Facebook Page, Sunday World, by clicking here for the latest breaking news in South Africa. To Subscribe to Sunday World, click here
