Six Rand Aid staff members learn self-defence skills
The self defence workshop focused on awareness and encouraged participants to be both passively aware of their surroundings and actively engaged with what is happening around them.
Six staff members from Elphin Lodge and Ron Smith Care Centre learned practical, essential Krav Maga self-defence skills during a recent two-hour workshop aimed at helping them react to dangerous situations.
Terence Purves conducted the training after local businesses PMI and Labex arranged the session for their staff and sponsored six positions for employees from the complex.
The Rand Aid staff who attended were Elphin Lodge village manager Debbie Beech, deputy manager Hlumela Anderson, Ron Smith Care Centre social worker Nadine Radford, Elphin Lodge complex accounts clerk Boniswa Sithole, and front-office staff members Zodwa Mthombeni and Tanya Switala.
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Debbie described the workshop as both practical and informative, highlighting techniques learned to escape various grab holds.
Purves focused on situational awareness, encouraging participants to remain passively aware of their surroundings and actively engaged with what happens around them.
Three basic rules for awareness were emphasised.
• Trust what you know, not what you think you know.
• Know your normal and be aware if something is off.
• If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.
The workshop comes as concern over violence against women remains high.
Since July, at least 11 women’s bodies have been discovered in the greater Ekurhuleni area, with several victims showing signs of sexual violence.
Although police have made arrests in some of the cases, investigators have not confirmed that the deaths are linked.
In a September 29 address to the nation, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged the scale of the crisis, stating that the government’s response to GBV and femicide had ‘not been enough’.
He announced a national review of unresolved murders, attempted murders, rapes and serious sexual offences involving women and children.
The president also ordered municipalities to conduct women’s safety audits to identify hazards such as broken streetlights, overgrown public spaces, abandoned buildings and unsafe transport routes.
