“We want people, especially children, to understand that we are part of the community. They mustn’t run away when they see our vans,” says Khayelitsha Police Station spokesperson Const Asanda Daweti.
She was commenting during a handover of school shoes to a group of learners from Vuzamanzi Primary School, in Site C, on Friday 11 February.
“They must know that we are there for them,” she added, cautioning parents to stop threatening their children with police when they misbehave.
The station donated 27 pairs of school shoes to a group of needy learners to ensure they did not feel ashamed.
Daweti described the initiative as part of the station’s back-to-school campaign. As officers, she said they felt a need to contribute to the school. She also described the drive as part of trying to build the relationship between the station and the community. She urged the learners to focus on their studies and said crime ruined people’s lives.
The handover is not the first for the station, added Daweti. “It depends on the situation because, last year, we donated clothes to the shack fire victims at SST in Town Two (“Khayelitsha police donate clothes to shack-fire victims at SST informal settlement”, City Vision, 7 November 2023). There’s a lot that we are doing in our communities trying to rebuild trust between us and the community,” she concluded.
Mcebisi Mnconywa, the school principal, praised the officers for the initiative. He said the donation would change people’s perception of the officers. “We received 27 pairs of shoes donated to the learners who come to school without shoes. Learners were so excited with the shoes. We want to thank the leadership of the Khayelitsha Police Station for identifying our school as one of the needy schools,” he said, adding the shoes meant a lot to the learners and would boost their self-esteem and academic performance.