STANFORD COMMUNITY POLICE FORUM Working For You and With You

Writer: Vanessa Tedder

Up until joining the ranks of Stanford Community Police Forum (CPF) recently, I have to confess I had little to no knowledge of who its members were and what exactly they were doing. And I am willing to wager there are probably many more inhabitants of our village who would claim the same. The brutal attack on an elderly woman in December 2022, in Stanford brought home the reality that even seemingly serene little villages are not immune to violent crime. As horrific as that incident was, it also summed up succinctly the power and the need for entities like CPF’s. It was thanks to the combined efforts of local security, private citizens, Stanford CPF and SAPS that those behind the violent home invasion were behind bars barely three hours after the victim was discovered.

So, first things first: what exactly is the CPF? The CPF is a legal and legitimate arm of the South African Police service. Its mandate is to ensure an honest and transparent relationship between the community and police with an aim of creating an environment for a better quality of life, reducing fears of crime and most importantly to reduce and eradicate crime causing conditions in a community. Here in Stanford, we should never be so facile to think crime more especially violent crime is a rot and evil reserved only for cities. Many in our community are battling unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and poverty – all key ingredients to a recipe for trouble and tragedy.

And it is here in this treacherous terrain of socio-economic challenges and the historical disadvantages of a sector of our community, which we cannot and should never ignore or brush off, that Stanford CPF has been working not just to strengthen safety and security of all villagers, but to also provide support and empowerment to those of us whose lives and circumstances are nothing short of desperate and despairing. A seemingly insurmountable task but not for Stanford CPF.

We have ongoing programmes aimed at guiding and supporting underprivileged boys from our community and mentoring them as they journey into adulthood, to becoming men with purpose and promise. Tackling bullying, teenage pregnancies and gender violence at school level means our members can often be found delivering talks in the classrooms. Sport has always been a unifier of people and a powerful tool when it comes to instilling a sense of pride and purpose in people. The CPF has been conducting sporting programmes to entice youth off the streets and onto the fields away from crime and drugs.

Much of what we do is largely dependent on the financial assistance from our community. In the interest of transparency, the CPF’s financial records are always open to scrutiny. And no money is spent without the approval and consent of each and every member and the final thumbs up from our police station commander.

The Community in Blue (CIB) which is a branch of the CPF is a team of volunteers from the community, most of them women, including mothers and grandmothers, who after a hard day’s work can be found patrolling the streets at night, on the frontlines of drug and alcohol abuse and other risks to their lives to ensure that the rest of us can sleep a little more soundly.

A partnership between Food for Thought Stanford, SAPS and the CPF has borne a brilliant concept called the Social Employment Fund (SEF) which seeks to recruit and train unemployed community members in various spheres from cleaning to maintenance to gardening amongst other things.

The SEF recruits will then be assigned to various jobs within Stanford aimed at improving the aesthetics of our Village. All this exceptional and hard work, which means constantly engaging with the community, to sometimes being among the first responders at crime scenes, to providing support for SAPS to empowering those in need, requires not only a commitment and love of Stanford, not just the time of a team that truly embodies and is reflective of our beautiful and diverse community but also people with the innate desire and dedication to make this village a place we are all proud to call home.

“In every community there is work to be done. In every nation there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power do it.”