SELF-PROTECTION SKILLS TRAINING FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN AND WOMEN IN SOUTH AFRICA, THE 'RAPE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD'

“I was almost raped by four men after I’d alighted from a bus in Kangeni. This was at around 7pm and it was drizzling,” said Susan Wairimu. (East African Standard, 9.2.2001)

The men surrounded her. “I was grabbed by two of them, one in front and the other behind holding my neck. I immediately remembered some tactics I was taught by Dolphin Anti-rape Group.”

Susan poked the man in front in the eyes with two fingers. She kicked the man behind her in the shin. Both men let go and she ran, shouting, to her house about 200 meters away.

“One surprising thing,” Susan ends, “is that I did not notice where the other two had gone to.”

From April 2014 I PROTECT ME, (IPM), a non-profit organisation in South Africa will teach school girls how to protect themselves against sexual attack. And boys will be given awareness training to reverse negative sexual attitudes.

The training will be delivered in partnership with Dolphin Anti-Rape and Aids Control Outreach, Kenya, who have taught about 1 million school children in the slums of Nairobi with huge success.

South Africa, the “Rape Capital of the World” needs this training. There a woman is raped every 17 seconds, a third of men admit to raping someone, and a quarter of school boys say that “jackrolling” (their lingo for gang rape) is “fun” (http://www.sa-people.com/2011/03/28/south-african-rape-statistics/)

“We believe that the fight against Aids cannot succeed if we do not fight rape as well,” says Monica Clarke, the founder of IPM. “The police are not keeping us safe. 85% of safety is in our own hands, so we are going to do it ourselves” says Monica.

Dolphin will train the first 12 volunteers to become Self-Defence Instructors. They will be mostly unemployed men and women over 18 years of age. After their own training the Instructors will go into schools to teach children how to protect themselves. Four Instructors can, within 2 hours, train up to 500 children the skills. Boys are going to be given special awareness classes to change attitudes.

Monica saw the Dolphin training in Nairobi recently. It is a pyramid training system (trainers training trainers who train others), which has huge potential.

“I saw them give 2 hour sessions to three groups of about 500 primary school children who, with song, dance and repetition learnt lessons such as ‘Nobody has the right to touch my private parts,’ while each child with exaggeration touched their own private parts between whoops of laughter whilst dancing - and I could see the lesson sink in like water into dry sand.”

Men in the area around the schools will be called to come forward to be trained, for they will act as role models for boys outside the school grounds. And women who have been victims of rape are especially being asked to come for training as Instructors, to help others and to turn their pain into power.

The Department of Education in the Western Cape have entered into a partnership with IPM and are opening the school doors for this dynamic training. In Nairobi sexual attack has been reduced by up to 25% where Dolphin has done training. And so it will be in South Africa!

Please help. 1 US Dollar trains one child:
Donate here: http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=20469646&msgid=359051&act=3J0X...

Contact monicagclarke@gmail.com