On a cool winter morning in Mamelodi, the doors of a new refuge swung open with purpose. Inside is a team of five, supported by a network of volunteers, who began Healing Lives Foundation, an organisation born from one woman’s promise to her mother and her community to help fight gender-based violence. The foundation’s founder, Siphokazi Buwa, speaks of the project in plain, unwavering terms.
“It’s about restoring dignity, providing safe spaces for healing, and empowering survivors to rebuild their lives,” she says. Buwa’s attitude carries the authority of someone who has seen the problem up close; on radio waves, in community rooms and along streets where too many women and girls have nowhere to turn. A mother’s touch The idea, she says, is personal and generational.
Buwa credits her mother for the moral compass that guided her into service. “She stood for compassion, strength and service,” Buwa says. She says the foundation is her mother’s legacy: a structured, enduring vehicle to extend care to those who otherwise fall through the cracks.
Years presenting on Radio Pulpit sharpened her view of suffering behind closed doors, seeing “little girls and women with nowhere to go, feeling utterly hopeless”, which hardened her resolve to act. Mamelodi hotspot The location of Healing Lives Foundation was no accident of geography. Mamelodi, often called the “Mother of Melodies”, is a place of rich history and raw contradiction, said Buwa.
But is also a community grappling with the scourge of femicide and abuse. “We chose Mamelodi because we believe in investing in places of such rich heritage and enduring spirit,” Buwa says. Here, she believes, the community’s resilience can be harnessed to drive meaningful, lasting change.
Gauteng Social Development MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said that the township remains one of Gauteng’s identified GBVF hotspots and consistently ranks among the country’s areas with high levels of violence against women. Inside the NGO Healing Lives leans into layered, holistic support with “community dialogues” where survivors are invited to “breathe out pain and inhale peace”, faith-based partnerships that address spiritual as well as emotional wounds, and practical programmes designed to restore agency. Its 24/7 national helpline has trained responders to take calls that range from crisis counselling and safety planning to referrals for shelte…
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