Community-funded safety
Secure Community is built on one idea: safety is a right, not a privilege. It brings together a currently underserved community, private responders and technology into one integrated effort, owned by the people who live there. Community safety first, because everything else is built on it.
The problem
South Africa's townships carry a disproportionate share of violent crime. In Kayamandi, a dense community of around 40 000 people on the edge of Stellenbosch, residents face some of the highest murder rates in the Western Cape, with no access to the private security that wealthier suburbs take for granted. The government cannot fill this gap alone, and most residents have no affordable alternative.
Kayamandi's murder rate ranks near the top in the Western Cape.
of South African murder victims are in low-income (LSM 1 to 5) households.
private security that most township residents can afford today.
The Khayelitsha (O'Regan-Pikoli) Commission found SAPS under-resourced for township policing. Sources for the figures above to be confirmed before publishing.
Why Secure Community
Every township already has the structures that hold it together: schools, churches, clinics, taxi ranks, residents' groups, neighbourhood watches, and the security teams people pay for out of their own pockets. These are the keystones. What they lack is not will. It is coordination, information and steady funding.
Secure Community fixes the funding. Instead of waiting for one large grant, or for the state to act, many people each commit a small amount every month. Pooled together, that money pays for visible safety around the keystones the community already trusts, and connects them to SAPS through one shared picture.
Safety is co-produced. The community sees the incident and makes the report. The responder responds. The coordination between them is the product, and the thing that makes it work is trust, because people only report when they believe the response will come. A programme that asks people to report and then stops responding leaves a community worse off than before it started, which is why sustained funding matters more than a burst of it.
We start with physical safety because nothing else holds without it. Make people safe enough to get through today, and you give them the room to build everything else. Safety is not the whole answer. It is the foundation the rest is built on.
The model
No layer works on its own. A camera nobody responds to is just a recording. A patrol with no information is a guess. The model is the coordination between them.
We work through the structures that already hold the community together: schools, churches, residents' groups and local leadership. Buy-in from those leaders comes first. Without it, no reporting line gets trusted or used. Free and safe ways to share information, in any South African language, straight from WhatsApp: from criminal activity to infrastructure issues. No cost, no queue, no fear of being seen.
PSIRA-registered response officers on the streets, directed by data and known hotspots, at the times crime happens, in real time from the control room.
Cameras positioned at entry and exit points on the routes people use. Today they act mainly as a deterrent; the programme is building toward number plate recognition detail so footage feeds identification and evidence, not just visibility.
The intelligence layer behind everything: the plumbing that connects reports, patrol records, footage and interceptions into evidence SAPS can use to charge and convict offenders. Convictions are what make safety last. This is the layer we are building now.
SAPS data · Kayamandi
Comparing October 2025 to March 2026 against the same six months a year earlier, SAPS Stellenbosch data for Kayamandi shows reductions across every serious crime category.
of patrols across Kayamandi, November 2025 to February 2026.
crimes reported to SAPS in a single year, and surveys show roughly half of all crime is never reported.
free reporting, straight from WhatsApp.
Source: SAPS Stellenbosch. A joint pilot between Secure Community NPC, Prosec Guards and SAPS Stellenbosch.
These are early numbers, from one community, with limited resources. They show what is possible when the layers work together.
What we measure next: falling crime is the start. As the evidence layer comes online, we will report convictions secured alongside these numbers, so progress is judged on consequences and not on sentiment alone.
Community intelligence
Roughly 4 000 community members are already contributing information through free reporting. Several interceptions on the ground have proved the concept. The next step is the evidence layer: turning reports, footage and patrol records into arrests and convictions.
Community members contributing information
100% public submissions
Community safety survey
Community safety survey
Live reporting map
Kayamandi · placeholder until live embed
Safety survey
Community safety survey, Kayamandi.
Distribution across 401 responses
Distribution across 401 responses
Most frequently reported safety concerns
Most frequently reported environmental issues
What comes next
Interceptions prove that reporting leads to response. Arrests and convictions are the layer we are building now: assembling evidence packs from community reports, patrol records and footage so SAPS can charge offenders and remove repeat criminals from the community.
Source: Secure Community platform and community safety survey, Kayamandi. Chart counts are scaffold values from export; confirm before publishing.
On the ground
Schools, churches, meetings and street days where residents learn the reporting line, meet the response team and see the programme in person.
Where it began. We introduced free, anonymous crime reporting on WhatsApp, in your first language. No app to download, no cost, no queue.
The newly formed Community Wolf team's first trip to Kayamandi, joining Gretha Groeneveld, who had been mapping crime across Stellenbosch for years. After every meeting with the community and community leaders, the tool was adapted, optimising around safety and anonymity.
First Stellenbosch Community Police Forum meeting hosted by Andre Pelser, where Community Wolf presented the crime reporting tool alongside SAPS. The first CPF meeting with Kayamandi represented.
The Prosec Guards team cleaning SAPS's satellite station in Kayamandi. Rebuilding and maintaining keystone entities and infrastructure is core to Secure Community's thesis: safety starts with the structures communities already trust.
Patrol routes mapped with response teams on the streets where crime happens. Routes plotted across Kayamandi and shared with officers before deployment, so coverage follows where residents actually live and move.
PSIRA-registered response officers trained on the reporting platform and crime hotspots as patterns started to form across Kayamandi. Patrol coverage directed to where residents were reporting most.
The Prosec Guards response team on scene in Kayamandi, responding to a reported incident alongside SAPS. Visible, PSIRA-registered patrol directed by community reports and hotspot data: the coordination layer between what residents report and what happens on the street.
Training for community ambassadors on how to help educate residents on the impact that rebuilding communication and reporting will make. Run by Gretha Groeneveld and Lukhona Sitole.
Back the programme
Every contribution goes toward deploying and running a response vehicle in Kayamandi: visible patrol and PSIRA-registered response on the streets. It does not pay for platform or technology costs; those are funded separately. We are not asking residents to pay for their own safety, and we are not asking one funder to carry it. We are building a base of contributors giving smaller amounts each month. Pooled together, that is what keeps the vehicle on the road without gaps.
Per month, with two armed reaction officers on patrol.
Permanently stationed in Kayamandi (R200 000 per month at full deployment).
R1 200 over 12 months
ContributeR6 000 over 12 months
ContributeR12 000 over 12 months
ContributeR60 000 over 12 months
ContributeAll amounts fund vehicle deployment in Kayamandi, not technology. Larger commitments can be made by EFT.
Founding partners including Community Wolf and Buzzer are committing at higher levels separately from this public tier ladder. Their giving funds the vehicle in Kayamandi; the reporting platform is funded separately.
Corporate partners
Organisations can support the programme with a tailored monthly or annual commitment, separate from the public tier ladder. Get in touch to discuss corporate partnership.
