OUR CONCERN
Recent numbers on crime statistics drawn up by the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice (2019) listed Cape Town as 11th in the most dangerous cities in the world. With 2,868 murders, the last year has shown a significant increase and the chances to become the victim of a violent crime in Cape Town are frighteningly high in Cape Town. Statistics from the Institute for Security Studies (2017) show further that 83% of all gang-related murders in South Africa took place in the Western Cape and that knives were used in the majority of murders in South Africa (36%). While all areas of community life are affected by violence, it appears that especially schools serve as an experiential ground and intercept between social development and violence.
ORGANISATIONAL STRATEGY
SCHOOL INTERVENTION
In search of alternative intervention methods, martial arts based programmes have been proposed to carry the potential for violence prevention for adolescents who are at increased risk of engaging in violent and aggressive behaviour and delinquency, and have further positively affected discipline, respect for oneself and others, emotional coping skills as well as self-esteem of participants in general. The following intervention concept is a modified version of a community based project that aims to provide a support for adolescents and teach them an honourable conduct and how to channel impulsive emotions into proactive and prosocial behaviour through the teachings of martial arts in practice and philosophy. Participation in this multi-phased martial arts based programme consists of two 60-minute sessions per week and will be facilitated by two martial arts instructors. The programme is sub-divided in four different phases and strongly builds on cognitive-behaviour techniques and psychoeducation in addition to the martial arts practice.
FOUR INTERVENTION PHASES
1) GROUP NORMS, GROUP COHESION, PSYCHO-EDUCATION
2) TRUST, SELF-ESTEEM, EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING, ROLE PLAYS
3) TRANSFER OF DISCIPLINE AND SELF-CONTROL INTO EVERYDAY LIFE AND PERSONAL PRACTICE
4) EMOTIONAL REGULATION, EMPATHY, EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING, PROSOCIAL GOAL
MENTORSHIP GROUP
The primary goal of the Bom Combat mentorship group is to cultivate a group of young community leaders and positive role modelsfor the youth.While we regard this as a bold and challenging goal, we aim toguide the individual and group development process through a direct interaction with our mentees from at-risk communities. In that, we focus our mentorship programme on three areas of development:
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• emotional understanding and maturity
• cognition and knowledge (about martial arts and its philosophy)
• positive identity
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All members of our mentorship group were part of the Bom Combat intervention programme and have experienced a change from antisocial towards prosocial behaviour. Through continuous team- and character-building activities, we build a positive interpersonal relationship and catalyse a young person’s positive development. By choosing activities that allow experiences for active role modelling, caring and the provision of support, we use the mentoring relationship and the resulting group dynamics as a form of “corrective experience” in the absence of positive role models and scarce behaviour alternatives displayed in many under-resourced communities.
We further offer our mentees different occupational skill trainings and provide peer-guided education in communication, self-reflection, expression of emotions and emotional regulation, enabling every person in our programme to grow and develop into the person they want to become.
WORKSHOPS
Bom Combat has been active in the communities that rank amongst the highest in South African crime statistics. While most of our activities focus on youth, martial arts and violence prevention, various stakeholder voiced their need for support and guidance in self-defense when confronted with a violent attack. We regard a basic understanding of self-defense concepts in ultra-violent and possibly life-threatening situations as an important component for one’s own perception of safety and environmental awareness. As such, we offer our expert knowledge in martial arts, coaching, special weapons and tactics in form of a practical workshops to members in our communities and hope to contribute in part towards the perception of a safer environment.
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The workshop setting and duration is tailored for each group individually (depending on individual need) and consists of the following three components:
1) Brief legal perspective on self-defense in South Africa
2) Psychology of knife attacks
3) Practical self-defense techniques and tactics
