One Interactor's fight against child rape in South Africa's
townships became the story of her life.

"I have learnt that no matter how old you are, the impossible is achievable...I firmly believe that the life of one person, if helped, can change the course of the world, as you never know who that one little girl or boy could be."
— Interactor Ashley Kaimowitz (1985-2005) Sea Point, South Africa

Thank you to Sharon Cyr of Rotary International for giving us permission to share this story written by Janessa Goldbeck in The Rotarian.

In the poverty-stricken township of Khayelitsha, just outside Cape Town, South Africa, an estimated one in every three girls is raped by age 21. After HIV/AIDS, rape is South Africa's largest epidemic, largely because of a myth that sexual intercourse with a virgin can cure AIDS. Children are especially vulnerable, but they have few resources to protect them.

Ashley Kaimowitz was just 16 years old when she learned of the atrocities occurring in the township a few miles from her affluent Cape Town suburb. As secretary of the Herzlia High School Interact Club, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Sea Point, South Africa, Kaimowitz and her fellow officers were invited to visit the Nonceba Family Counselling Centre, which provides rape crisis services for children in Khayelitsha. Local resident Nocawe Mankayi established the center in 1998 to fight child rape in the community.

Mankayi runs the counseling center out of a one-room brick building in the heart of the township. It's leased monthly from the University of Cape Town and operates solely on donations from the private sector and the university, though the center's volunteers sometimes contribute money from their own savings. Nonceba was and still is the only crisis center in the area established specifically for children who are survivors of rape and abuse.

Every day, Mankayi and her volunteers serve the township's poorest children a meal of thin gruel or whatever else they have on hand — often the only food the children eat all day — and offer them a supervised place to play: a rusted jungle gym with a tire swing. They also provide counseling, arrange for hospital transportation, and document the statements of each victim who comes through the door. The center is dingy and understaffed, but it's the only safe haven for Khayelitsha's poor children.

Kaimowitz's Interact club was invited to the center by Hazel Black, who serves as Nonceba's primary fundraiser. Black scheduled the visit to raise awareness among the Interactors of the challenges that disadvantaged children face.

One afternoon, Kaimowitz and her peers filled the small room and listened to Mankayi explain the center's desperate need for funding and resources. As Mankayi spoke, Kaimowitz couldn't stop staring at a little girl who sat hunched on a bench against the wall. Mankayi explained that the girl, who was just four years old, had been raped by her father the night before.

"I leaned down and opened my arms, and the little girl looked at me and then buried herself within my hug," Kaimowitz wrote in an e-mail to friends and family. "I began to cry uncontrollably, and it was at that moment that I knew that my purpose on this earth was nothing less than to change it."

In the car on the way home, Kaimowitz couldn't shake the image of the little girl. But what could she do, she wondered? She was just a regular teenager, a high school student who liked playing basketball and chatting with friends over coffee.

"When Ashley returned from the center, she was all fired up," says Megan Kaimowitz, her mother. "She said, 'Mum, I'm going to make a film about what Nocawe is doing, to create awareness of child rape, and we are going to raise money to build a better center.' I said to her, 'OK, Ash,' not really believing her."

Ashley's passion for film inspired her to try her hand at producing a documentary about rape in South Africa's townships and use the film as a fundraising tool to build a new and better center. Without equipment or experience, Kaimowitz dove into the project, her mother recalls. She wrote letters requesting sponsorship and received a US$1,000 check from family friends in the United States. Money in hand, she recruited schoolmates Lexi Aronson, Jae Braun, and Shani Judes as her crew.

"Ashley told me we were going to make this film, and the next thing I know, she's calling me up at 7 a.m. on Saturday saying, 'Get ready. We're going to Khayelitsha,'" says Braun. "I was like, do we even have a camera?"

The owner of Magus Visual, a South African film equipment rental company, had agreed to loan Kaimowitz everything she needed after meeting with her and listening to the idea.

With the equipment, crew, and security hired by her parents, Kaimowitz headed out. "We were a little concerned about Ashley going into the townships," her mother says. "So we hired security to go with her, which we later discovered was unnecessary. She said she'd never experienced such warmth and sense of family as she did in Khayelitsha."

Kaimowitz wrote: "For the four months it took to produce the film from creation to completion, I remember the emotion of it all — not sleeping, storyboarding in my head, scripting, running from my principal's office to the library with ideas to expand upon, not spending a single moment sitting down, and trying desperately to fit in the studying and the basketball practice. I think my mother was more worried that I would end up in the hospital before the end than I was about my schoolwork!"

Kaimowitz and her friends spent several days gathering footage in Khayelitsha. "It's a completely different lifestyle there," says Braun. "You see meat out in the sun, covered in flies. But it's also vibrant and welcoming."

Kaimowitz shot 10 hours of footage, which she took to a professional editing company that had offered to teach her and Aronson the basics of film editing. The staff at the studio was so impressed with the project that they didn't charge Kaimowitz a cent.

"Her sense of passion was just contagious," Braun recalls.

In 2002, the 24-minute film Uthando Labatwana – For the Love of Our Children premiered in Kaimowitz's high school auditorium before an audience of nearly 200, including her fellow Interactors. The film received a standing ovation.

"When I saw the finished film for the first time, I thought, wow," says Braun. "Ashley saw what was happening and was able to portray it in a way that catalyzed the whole community. The donations started pouring in."

Since its premiere, Uthando Labatwana has been shown in high schools and Rotary clubs throughout South Africa, and it was even screened at a film festival in Japan, where Kaimowitz was a Rotary Youth Exchange student in 2004.

"She told me when she started, 'Mum, this isn't just about funds, it's about raising awareness,' " her mother says. "I think she would be proud of how many people have heard the story today."

The film won several honors, including a prestigious Stone Award for excellence in media produced in South Africa's Western Cape. Kaimowitz's talent was also recognized, and she was offered a full scholarship to study digital arts at the Australian National University in Canberra.

But in March 2005, a few weeks before she was to leave for Australia, the 19-year-old Kaimowitz was on her way home from a meeting about the future of film when her car was hit by a drunken driver. She was killed instantly.

"That was the darkest time for me," says her mother, recalling the night she opened her front door to find two police officers bearing news of her daughter's death. "But Ashley's light has lived on through her film and has allowed others' lives to be improved."

The Rotary Club of Hout Bay, which sponsored Kaimowitz's Youth Exchange in Japan, along with several other Rotary clubs, established the Ashley Kaimowitz Memorial Trust. The trust honors Kaimowitz's dedication to child rape victims by managing and soliciting donations for the Nonceba Family Counselling Centre.

Since her death, Kaimowitz's story and film have appeared frequently on South African television, including the popular news magazine show Carte Blanche, which aired a feature on her life. NHK, a television network in Japan, also featured a documentary on Kaimowitz.

The Nonceba Family Counselling Centre has since received R5 million (US$729,150) in direct donations, and the Rotarian-managed memorial fund has grown to more than R160,000 (US$23,300). Work will start in a few months to rebuild the center, complete with dormitories, an infirmary, legal and counseling offices, and a community center. A van for taking children to the hospital and police station will also be purchased. A wing of the center, named after Kaimowitz, will display a sculpture by a prominent South African artist in her memory.

"What that child did when she came in here was open up her heart for all these other children," Mankayi says. "Thank God she came to us. These little girls will never meet her, but they will always remember her name."

For those who wish to learn more about how to help the children of South Africa in the name of Ashley Kaimowitz, Ashley’s story can also be viewed on the Rotary District 9350 website at www.rotary9350.co.za

This article is © 2005 Rotary International and is provided for the non-profit use of Rotarians worldwide; commercial use is prohibited. The article may be quoted, excerpted or used in its entirety, but the information should not be changed or modified in any way. Read more information in the RI copyright notice.

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