Hello everyone, my name is Nnoye Olisa and I am a student at Northcliff High School. I put this message together with the intent of getting as many signatures as possible and hopefully this will ensure change. In light of everything that has been going on in our country and how more women keep falling victim to violent crimes at the hands of men, I have been questioning the ways in which Northcliff High School could take the initiative to educate students on Gender Based Violence and what measures we could take to protect the women at our school.

South Africa is the rape capital of the world. People get raped in this country 3 times more than the global average, that is an extremely scary reality to come to terms with, one can’t ignore it any longer considering our president has publicly acknowledged GBV as a pandemic in this country.

I believe that it would be a great idea for the school to especially take more time to educate students on Gender Based Violence. Male students should be aware of what rape culture is and how they might be unknowingly contributing to it. It is not enough to claim to have respect for women, men must be educated on how to break the rape culture cycle prevalent in this country, by learning how to identify when something is wrong or harmful against women, how to call out and EDUCATE FRIENDS when they say something wrong.

When it comes to the ladies, I really believe that it would be a great idea to incorporate self defense classes into the P.E. Syllabus. It is crucial for females to be taught how to protect themselves, knowing that the chances of them being in a dangerous situation and in need of self defense is very high in this country. This school can also teach you how to act when you feel or know that you have been drugged. Safety precautions on what to do at a party if you feel unsafe, there is just so much more that can be taught to ensure the safety of female students and this is an important life skill that will help us even after school.

The Life Orientation syllabus definitely needs to be revised. Some of us have been taught that if your partner wants to engage in sexual activity and you don’t want to, you should consider just giving in because this called is “compromise” in a relationship. This is extremely toxic because it enforces the fact that your partner can pressure you into doing certain things just because you are in a relationship. NO MEANS NO. We need to be educated on how to respect boundaries and understand the word no!

Going by the statistics, 1 in every 3 women will have experienced sexual assault in this country, this means in a group of girls at Northcliff High, 1 out of 3 girls would have been sexually assaulted without even leaving high school. I truly believe that Northcliff High School can do so much more when it comes to educating it’s students on GBV.

I am gathering signatures for this petition and it will be sent to those at the top of management. Please sign and share to everyone you know, I truly believe that the school can do so much more to enforce the safety of its female students.