Over ten years ago the district of Hoekwil experienced youth gang violence on commercial farms. Farmers, business people from George and members of the Hoekwil and Touwsranten community came together to find a solution.
The solution involved setting up The Seven Passes Initiative as a community-based organisation (CBO) situated in the small rural community of Touwsranten. Since 2008 we have grown our understanding of the effects of poverty, alcohol abuse and domestic violence on families in this community.
In 2016 we interviewed 473 parents in a baseline survey as part of a partnership between Seven Passes, the Psychology Department of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the Governance, Crime and Justice Project of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria. The survey revealed that there are approximately 1 091 caregivers and 839 children living in 481 households in Touwsranten.
The graph below shows the demographics of parents interviewed: number of fathers and mothers who took part in the survey, their languages, how many of the parents are biological parents, and how many are employed:
