On April 14, pupils from Mzokhanyayo High School and Uviwe Senior Secondary School received top prizes from national foundation Safer SA for their literary essays on reducing crime in their communities.
The first prize winners were Phumelela Mseleni for Mzokhanyayo High and Hlela Mkhizwana from Uviwe SSS.
Safer SA was established in 2012 by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) and aims to mobilise underresourced communities to build awareness and ability to work together to strengthen crime prevention.
Safer SA volunteer Rene Morrison adjudicated the contest and said, “The winning essays were so impressive because not only could they define what they perceive as criminal elements but they also could identify specifics in the school and offer original solutions.
“This is so extremely mature of them and so powerful especially when you consider that these pupils come from environments where they are engulfed in crime-riddled circumstances. This programme is giving them the confidence to stand up and trust their instincts when they feel that something is wrong.”
Safer SA has eight branches across the country that enrol pupils at secondary schools into a programme consisting of 10 sessions that exposes them to relevant information regarding the security cluster and the role that young people can play in preventing crime at local level.
At the final stage of the programme, participants are required to submit an essay highlighting their ideas for crime prevention. The top three best essays from each school received awards and certificates for their effort.
Now that the pupils from Uviwe Senior Secondary School and Mzokhanyayo High School have completed the programme, they will form part of the local CPF in their communities, as well as student representative bodies at their schools.
In addition to the teaching sessions, the pupils take part in national competitions for debating and public speaking, and the Eastern Cape won the competition in 2020 and came third in 2021.
Safer SA believes that voices of pupils will provide the youth with a platform from which to contribute to efforts to create safer communities across the country.
Current CEO of the foundation, former national commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, said: “Crime is on the rise in schools but the crime that we see in schools is a microcosm of society.
“We want to empower young people with knowledge and wisdom so that they can make choices that are better informed.
“We have been able to mobilise many stakeholders across the security cluster, the NPA, education, the Human Rights Commission, traffic department and the banking sector to contribute towards the programme and this successful collaboration is a huge feat.
“Schools do not have a dedicated values agenda that covers behaviour, values and ethics and our programme wants to highlight the fact that behaviour is learned and values are conditioned and we want to encourage schools to adapt means to incorporate teachings about ethics into their academic programmes as well.
“Our local CPFs are doing great work but we need to strengthen intergenerational representativity and that desire to be reflected in structures like the CPFs came across in the wonderful essays the pupils submitted.
“The youth have a unique perspective and their participation is a benefit for the CPFs and it gives the youth in their area a means to expend their energy in beneficial ways.”
