Mugging was call to help Flats addicts
UK man responds to attack by moving to SA to change lives
● Anger, fear, helplessness and anxiety are what many of us go through after a traumatic event.
But Pete Portal, 34, a UK theologian who was mugged at knifepoint in the gang stronghold of Bonteheuwel in Cape Town, took it as a call to help.
Two years after his 2007 visit to SA, during which he was attacked, the former maker of programmes for the BBC’s children’s service packed his bags, kissed his middleclass life goodbye and returned to the Mother City to help.
Since 2010, he’s been living in Manenberg — another gang stronghold, where drug dens thrive and bullets from gang warfare fly every day.
“What struck me the most was not necessarily the intensity of living in Bonteheuwel. It was the level of inequality,” Portal told the Sunday Times this week.
“You could drive 10 minutes and there are people who grew up in the city who would never even know what was going on.”
Manenberg is one of 10 police precincts where South African National Defence Force soldiers have been deployed since last month. Combined, the precincts account for 42% of attempted murders in the Western Cape.
Portal and his South African wife, Sarah, a war studies graduate, are working to get gangsters out of their destructive lives and into a life of purpose.
The couple’s yellow and blue home is open to those who want to leave gangsterism and drug addiction.
Said one beneficiary of the programme, Waydin Davids, who joined the Portals’ house in 2016: “I knew I would not be judged for my mistakes, and for me that made a lot of difference.”
The “sober-living house” — which was established five years ago — is currently home to five recovering addicts.
The couple said that counselling, prayer, board games, gardening and training in carpentry skills form part of the recovery process.
While not trying to be “saviours or replace their biological families”, the couple re-parent troubled youths, many of whom were neglected as children.
In a non-judgmental space, they are taught how to love and express their emotions without aggression.
“Most of these young people join gangs because they are looking for love and brotherhood. Behind their anger and violence is a scared little boy who wants to belong,” said Portal.
Sarah, who met Portal shortly after SA’s 2010 Soccer World Cup, said living in Manenberg had never crossed her mind. In fact, she was preparing to leave for the Democratic Republic of Congo to work with child soldiers when she met him.
“I grew up being told if you go there you will die, and if that happens you must know that it’s your fault because you’ve been warned,” she said.
The Portals also run a crèche for the children of addict mothers. The children are often neglected and don’t have their early childhood development needs met.
They also have a support group for addict mothers, and a support programme for teenage girls.
10,047 THE NUMBER of people admitted for treatment of alcohol and drug use in SA in 2017 (Source: the South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use)
60% THE PERCENTAGE of crimes committed in SA involving the use of substances
The relationships the couple have with locals make their leap of faith rewarding, but seeing young men successfully kick their drug addiction is their ultimate joy.
Davids, who started smoking dagga when he was nine and used tik and mandrax from the age of 13, said one of the reasons he joined a gang was to find companionship.
“I think the love I received here during the eight months encouraged me to come back,” he said.
Defence experts this week said community-level interventions are more likely to reap positive results than initiatives such as the current military deployment of about 1,300 soldiers, who will be withdrawn at the end of the month.
A source in the defence department said senior personnel had tried to convince President Cyril Ramaphosa to reverse the deployment, which involves soldiers doing little more than street patrols or acting as “bodyguards” for police officers.
The deployment comes amid a military budget crisis, with operational capacity already severely reduced due to an estimated R30bn budget shortfall.
“The army isn’t really trained to do police work,” said Helmoed Heitman, who helped write SA’s Defence Review.
“It also sends a very bad political message.” — Additional reporting by Bobby Jordan