Church Project 2019-20

Camp Joy

Raising funds to help former gangsters and drug abusers start a new life.

Each year Solihull Methodist Church raises money for an important cause, alternately at home or overseas. In 2019, Rev Mike Crockett, one of our previous ministers, was now a leading volunteer helping a church, the First Community Resource Centre, reduce gang violence in the depressed Hanover Park district of Cape Town by rehabilitating former gang members and drug abusers at a place called Camp Joy.

The Centre had an IT system called Ceasefire developed in Chicago. Microphones on lamp posts relay the sound of gunfire and give its location within 2-3 seconds.

The Church had gained the trust of the local community. It did not inform on gang activities. Instead it provided meals every day and organised many community activities. This meant that mums, grandmas and others could say to their young men Give the Centre a chance.

As a result, the Centre had turned around some former gang members. Some had become interrupters who could reach the scene of the gunfire within three minutes and try to establish the facts, cool things down and offer to mediate. They had credibility because they could speak the language of the street. It still takes great courage.

Rebuilding lives takes place at Camp Joy. The counsellors there do not condemn. They know the chaos former gang members come from and the drug problems most have. They know they must offer something better if lives are to change. At the time of the project, facilities at Camp Joy were spartan with showers and washrooms so bad that residents had to wash in the kitchen. There was an urgent need for renovation.

Thanks to some great fund raising events and very generous donations the sum of £9,000 was raised and forwarded to Camp Joy before the project had to be put on hold and the remaining fund-raising events cancelled because of the Covid lock-down. This money went to help improve the very basic dormitories.