Last fall, our Kerus founders Drs. Jennie Cerullo and Marcia Ball were shopping in a local Johannesburg market, finding items for Kerus fundraising efforts in the USA. They were introduced to a beautiful entrepreneur, KHUMBELO RAMARU. As they chatted, Dr. Ball mentioned that she was of Kerus Global Education and was promoting the It Takes Courage! program and orphan care projects in South Africa. A HUGE smile burst across Khumbelo’s face. “I’ve done that program! It changed my life! That’s why I’m here today!” She continued, “Oh, yes! Your Dr. Marcia and Dr. Jennie!” Tears began to flow as we learned of how Kumbelo’s experience with our program truly changed her life as a mother, a teacher, and gave her the courage to pursue her own business endeavor – producing gorgeous leather handbags.
We learned of another passion of hers – karate! She is now a black belt and has co-founded an organization called Pink Kick; offering training seminars, for free, to teach the principles of self-defense. Khumbelo begged us to do another It Takes Courage! training in Soshanguve and promised to use her influence to help. We agreed. That conference was offered in January and Khumbelo represented her organization Pink Kick and helped to train our teachers, pastors and social workers what to do should they be confronted by an attacker.
South Africa is identified as one of the gateway countries for global sex trafficking and Kerus is gearing up to offer a Sex Trafficking Prevention Training Initiative in 2021. We will offer a two-day training seminar for teachers, pastors and other community workers to be able to implement in their spheres of influence. Our goal is to partner with Khumbelo and Pink Kick to make the Pink Kick self-defense training programs available to children and grannies throughout our Kerus It Takes Courage! networks in South Africa.