The Gangster Healers - Cape Chameleon

<span class="entry-title-primary">The Gangster Healers</span> <span class="entry-subtitle">An Ingenious Way to Deal with the Township's Greatest Problem</span>

Photo: Jonathan Rebmann

The Gangster Healers An Ingenious Way to Deal with the Township's Greatest Problem

24th June 2015 0 Comments 2689 views

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WORDS Jonathan Rebmann

Violence is like tuberculosis. Violence is like HIV. Violence is a disease. But there is hope, because violence is curable. The First Community Resource Centre (FCRC) is an NGO in Hanover Park that implements this idea. The method is called CeaseFire.

Craven Engel, head of the FCRC, illustrates the concept with an image from daily life in the townships: Anyone sitting in a dark, dirty shack – with the smell of wet clothes and chicken dung wafting through the broken door – will be prone to bad health. A resident exposed to such circumstances is much more likely to get sick from viruses in the air, than an inhabitant of a bright, clean house with enough fresh air coming in. To cure violence on the Cape Flats, the FCRC uses a surprisingly simple way that treats the social ill like a medical problem. And they do it with great success.

The face on the ground turns grey like ash, as Peter* pulls back the knife. The guy on the ground is dead. With his fist clenched around the weapon, the gangster walks away. Peter is young. Not even 16 years old. Scenes like this often happen in the townships. Too often, for Craven Engel. Hence the idea for a community centre was born out of his desire to make things better.

Thanks to NGOs like the FCRC, the road in the township could lead to a brighter future. Late president Mandela said: ‘Only by acting together can we achieve lasting peace on this continent.’ Photo: Jonathan Rebmann

It all began in the year 2002. ‘The only resource I had at the time was this spade,’ the senior pastor of a small church comments as he looks at a picture showing him laying the cornerstone for their new community centre. The FCRC is designed to support the community in their daily struggle with poverty, unemployment and gangsterism. ‘Our main function is youth development,’ Engel adds, referring to the education programme. He and his 52 staff members help youngsters write CVs, search for jobs and sign contracts with companies. The church supported the initiative from the beginning. Within two years they collected R800,000 to build the centre, a tremendous sum for inhabitants of a township.

Peter did not have such support. He joined a gang to find acceptance from friends, to find a group that supported him. Instead, his life became more volatile. He found himself forced down the vortex of drugs, crime, prison and again drugs, crime and prison. His tattoo gives evidence of his time behind bars. ‘They come out of prison worse.’ Engel knows. The young gangs get trained and corrupted by ex-prison members. One of their main aims is to sell drugs. Therefore they separate a township into ‘beats’. Each of the five ‘main line gangs’ rules one of these house blocks.

When, after three years of training, Engel and his team launched CeaseFire in Hanover Park, they used the pattern of the beats as well. The idea came from a physician called Gary Slutkin. He was inspired by his work for disease control in Africa. Back in Chicago in 2000, he began to use his knowledge about healthcare to reduce shootings and homicides. As the approach worked well, the initiative spread like wild fire around the globe. Thirteen years later, CeaseFire found its way back to its birthplace Africa. The programme follows a three-step sequence.

THREE-STEP SEQUENCE

1. IDENTIFY & MEDIATE CONFLICTS
On a screen Engel can see a map of the beats. When violence increases between two gangs, the area colours red. The data comes from the ground workers of his team, called ‘interrupters’. They find out about rising tensions and committed violence. Always connected to the system, they immediately send this data to the FCRC. When the office head sees a ‘hot spot’, they dispatch the interrupters to the rivaling gangs to mediate a truce.

2. DEAL WITH HIGH-RISK INDIVIDUALS
Like tuberculosis or HIV, the violence needs a ‘transporter’, an infected person who carries the illness to others. The interrupters will target individuals instead of blaming an entire gang for committing a crime. The ground workers are able to speak on a level with the gangsters, because they are – for the most part – former gang members, knowing the ‘street language’. Engel’s team puts each interrupter to the acid test to find out, if they bring enough credibility with them. To be more precise: they ask every gang, if they trust this person or not. As a result, they can choose the suitable interrupter for each case.

3. CHANGING THE COMMUNITY MIND SET
Engel understands his work also as an assignment from God. He wants ‘to make better people’ and adds: ‘but you can only make that which you are.’ Showing an alternative to violence, he wants to change people’s mind set. Consequently his team trains and develops other churches in this methodology on the entire peninsula. An important aim is to change the community’s idea that violence is normal. People live with fear every day and as a result they have come to accept it. Engel and his team want to change this.

But there is hope, even for gangsters. Peter overcame his past. Today, he is free from drugs, has a regular job and started a family. He didn’t leave his gang, for this is almost impossible, but he keeps his distance. The former outlaw regrets his gang involvement and serves as a role model for youngsters: ‘I stand against crime. Because I know my babies must grow up. My brother has a daughter [and] my sister has a daughter. These kids must grow up in this environment, and I don’t see a future with them here with this gang-related stuff. But if there is a committee to stand up against them, then I will stand with them.’

As the Western Cape Government confirms, the FCRC has halved the amount of gang-related murders and non-fatal shootings in the first six months after launch. The secret of CeaseFire is credibility. The families of the gangsters also benefit from the education and food supply the NGO offers. That’s why the gangs respect Engel and his work. At the same time this credibility serves as protection from raids. Engel assures that his staff have never been robbed, stabbed, not even beaten by gangsters. CeaseFire is not ‘anti-gang’, it’s anti-violence. Although, could it be the other way round, are the gangs scared of the FCRC? ‘Maybe in the back of their mind.’ Engel guesses. Even if Hanover Park will never be gang-free, it might be free of shootings one day.

*Names have been changed

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