Preaching the word of change

There is a lot of talk around how bad crime is and the consequences that follow if you get caught, but why do some people still resort to crime for a living?

Shakas Head resident Sizwe Mthethwa knows all about the life of a criminal, after he was arrested and sentenced to jail three times.

“It all starts with the people you associate yourself with. I was hanging with bad company, but at that time you do not think your friends will have a bad influence on you. It took me so many years to recognise that all the trouble I got into could have been avoided if I only had the right company around me,” said Mthethwa.

Mthethwa grew up in Groutville, Malende and he was working as a site clerk for a construction company when he took to crime.

He broke into people’s homes in Ballito and Salt Rock in 1993, but was soon arrested and sentenced in 1994 to four years jail for house breaking.

Two years after he was released, Mthethwa returned to his old ways and was arrested for armed robbery.

From 1999 until October 2001, Mthethwa was back behind bars.

“I was not guilty of the armed robbery, but because of the bad company I found myself in, I was suspected of committing that crime,” said Mthethwa.

He said he moved to Durban where he and his friends regularly stole cars in the Phoenix area.

The law caught up with him again in 2004 when he was arrested for house robbery and sentenced to three years.

Trying to fit in with the rest of his crime buddies, Mthethwa was also a drug addict.

“I use to smoke Button (a mixture of mandrax, dagga and cigarettes) and I gained nothing from all the things I did beside the criminal record that will stay with me for life and the death of my friends,” said Mthethwa.

In 2011 he decided to stop doing crime and joined the Life Changers Foundation in Durban.

“I was asked to give one reason for my actions, but I could not find an answer. I am so ashamed that all these years I wasted my time on something that I did not even have a reason for doing,” said Mthethwa.

Now you can find him at the KwaMama care centre in Shakas Head every Friday from 6pm to 8pm where he shares his message of the importance of associating yourself with people who have a positive impact in your life.

He tries to encourage young people to not follow the same path that he walked, but rather having a vision in life of what they want to achieve.

“I wanted to be teacher when I was still at school, so now I use that love for teaching to encourage young people to make the right decisions in life. If they make bad choices like I did, they might not be as lucky as me to escape that life in time,” said Mthethwa.