BUILDING SAFE COMMUNITIES

A Community Development and Safety initiative

“Building safe communities” - Who are we?

We are a group of Christ-followers who want to help create safe communities for all people in South Africa. We intend to pro-actively develop our communities to prevent crime and help support the Criminal Justice System. We aim to engage communities primarily through their Christian churches and other organisations where people in the community may be involved. We will operate through a Section 21 (not for profit) company to be formed.

Our activities are co-ordinated by Chris Jacks. He can be contacted on 082 857 7876 or chrisjacks@iafrica.com.

We are here for a purpose, and life is shaped by our approach. Our Challenge is to contribute what we can to improve the world around us, make it a better place for all.

A Brief history of the project

The unacceptably high crime levels that exist in South Africa prompted this initiative. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) realised that criticizing the authorities was not an effective way to fight crime.
The mandate for this project originated from the National Religious Leaders Forum after discussions with the State President. In early 2007, MCSA requested Bryanston Methodist Church (BMC) to pioneer a Community based initiative aimed at building safer communities. Ivan Abrahams, the presiding Bishop of MCSA, mandated Christopher Harrison (Senior Minister at BMC), to initiate this project. Christopher Harrison asked for volunteers from the congregation to form a project team, to consider how to address the chronic crime problem in South Africa.

After this calling, the team of founding members started the “Developing Safer Communities Project”. As part of this activity, the project team had discussions with Barbara Holtmann, Defence, Peace, Safety & Security (DPSS) from the CSIR. Barbara and her team developed a model showing what makes up the full ‘cycle of crime and violence’. This model has two specific components namely ‘Prevention’ and ‘Enforcement’. (The model is described in this document, see Figures 1 & 2).

The project team developed a strategy and will pilot it in various areas in Gauteng. With the experiences from the pilot areas, the strategy and process will be refined and offered to other communities in South Africa.

This project is unique, because it endeavours to involve the Christian churches in a community, to engage their people involved in other anti-crime initiatives and community development. It targets congregations and community members to become involved with community development and safety initiatives. The overall intention is to reduce crime in the community.