“My family drowned after their car crashed into the river. Those people helped us. We were all together in their office. They made us tea and gave us warm clothing. We did not have to stand at the side of the road. The police talked to us there. They called our families in the Eastern Cape.” Masixole
“Without the help of Community Cohesion I do not believe my family would have survived the weeks after my nephew was murdered. We are from the Congo and did not know our rights in South Africa. They organised a vigil for Didi, they assisted with the funeral and gave us emotional help. They helped us with court. We are still in contact with them and they have become like our family here” Emmanuele
“ I have extreme anger issues. I am seeing a counsellor at Cohesion for this. This has proved invaluable to me. I am now learning how to respond and not react. I cannot afford therapy and the fact that there is an organisation that is there for all, no matter what, is immeasurable. I thank you for the changes I am seeing in my life” Lawrence
“My child was very scared after seeing a man burnt where he died. She will not sleep. The social workers are working with her and me and it is getting better” Nandipha
“The social worker assisted with getting my grandchild to Red Cross Children’s Hospital where he was eventually diagnosed. They then made it possible that he is now in a special school where he is taken care of. I now visit him there.” Dudu
“The social worker Vivienne went to court with me. She went to the hospital with me. She still sees me to make sure I am fine. I know she will go to court with me again and make sure I understand everything that is being said.” Shantal
“We were victims of a home invasion and Bronwyn came to our house to help us reclaim our space. This was after we had seen her therapists at their offices. This meant so much to us. We were able to work through our trauma while someone was with us so we did not blame each other or ourselves but saw the invasion for what it was.” Linda
“the help for me to handle my boy being raped and the help he is getting from the child specialist is very good.” Margie
“Without Cohesion I would not have been able to function on a day to day basis. I was in a car crash and this left me extremely nervous to even leave my house. They spent months, at no charge, to get me to reframe the incident.” Evie
“I am a community leader in Hout Bay and deal with the safety and security of my neighbourhood. Community Cohesion has been called out, after hours, on countless occasions to assist with children that are looking to break in to houses, adults who are pretending to be insane to evade the law and to help the victims through their trauma after any incident.
I myself was in an armed robbery at our local hardware store. Bronwyn and her social workers responded to the scene within 15 minutes of the incident. We were seriously traumatized, and Bronwyn was on hand to talk us down, debrief us, make life seem vaguely normal again. She spent hours with us at the scene of the robbery and worked through all our collective stories so we could move on. I am not sure how I would have got through it without her help.
It is extremely rare to find an organisation that do what they set out to do. Cohesion don’t just do that, they are creating real change in a country that is in such desperate need.” Keri
“When my boy drowned Bron was with me all the time while we waited to see if they could find his body. They helped us at the police and went with us to the state mortuary. They also helped my family.” Mary-Anne