Guardian Angels South Africa

Dare to Care

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Vision Statement

Guardian Angels deliver the most powerful crime prevention, community mobilization and life skills enhancement programs in the world.  We oppose gangs, drugs, violence and decay, by actively and aggressively retrieving neighbourhoods in a non-violent manner.

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide positive role models for today’s youth and work toward promoting community safety and betterment for the good of society overall. We accomplish our mission through training young, multi-racial volunteers and mobilizing all levels of entire communities, who are effective as visual deterrents to patrol the streets in communities around the world. Our emphasis is on coordinating a variety of community-based services, programs and activities to speak and fight against violence, crime and drugs.  Our unique methodology enables existing structures to seamlessly integrate into a formidable force for safety.

Code of Conduct

We are members of an integrated group of people who come from greatly diversified ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds, which has provided each of us with our individual and unique qualities.

 

We are also Guardian Angels.  Under the influence of this organisation with its long history, own inherent traditions and unique culture we are bonded into the formidable and effective team we are today.

 

We understand that this rich heritage which it is our privilege to enjoy must be zealously guarded and preserved if we are to pass it on to posterity and for this reason we subscribe to the following code of conduct.

  • We undertake to appreciate, accept and respect our ethnic differences such as skin colour, physical features, mannerisms, food and clothes, which constitute our ethnic identity.
  • We undertake to appreciate, accept and respect our cultural differences such as our language, history, traditions, customs, music, art and literature, from which our cultural heritage stems.
  • We undertake to appreciate, accept and respect our social differences such as our social organisations, religions, communities, welfare laws and folklore from which our moral principles and respective value systems are drawn.
  • We undertake to work, develop and live together in harmony and brotherhood in our chapter of the International Alliance of Guardian Angels in the firm belief that we can learn from and enrich one another through our individual differences, which at the conclusion of our sojourn with one another will have moulded us into finer citizens in our mutual and determined quest towards building a better world.

We are defenders of honour and morality and therefore we will also:

  • Avoid any appearance of impropriety,
  • Use donated materials and equipment ethically and responsibly for its intended purpose
  • Avoid discussing our religious or political affiliations while involved in any form of Guardian Angels activity,
  • Maintain our neutrality at any political or social rallies we may attend,
  • Refrain from victimizing any member who reports other Guardian Angels who violate our ethics, rules and regulations or any of the just laws of the land

Our History

The year is 1979. America is slowly recovering from the Vietnam War.  There is an oil shortage and the economy is in a full-blown recession. In November, 53 Americans would be held hostage by Iran. State and city budgets across the country are being slashed. In New York City buildings are being burned down for insurance, and the City cannot afford to provide many services, including cleaning up parks and streets and providing adequate police protection. Many people considered New York as a brutal penal colony in a state of anarchy.

 

A night manager of a fast food franchise name Curtis Sliwa had enough of it just like every other New Yorker. Unlike most New Yorkers, however, he did something about it. He first organized co-workers and friends to clean up the streets around his workplace, then the neighbourhood, and then whole parts of the city. They called themselves the Rock Brigade. He then started cleaning up the subways, replacing brooms with berets.

 

Back in 1979, law enforcement was the domain of paid government workers. Even private security was frowned upon. Many people viewed the Guardian Angels as some sort of vigilante group. Many City officials, already embarrassed by their poor services, viewed the Guardian Angels as a sore reminder of their own shortcomings.

 

But 1979 was ripe for the Guardian Angels. The vast majority of Americans were sick and tired of gangs and gangsters ruling the night, terrorizing neighbourhoods, and claiming the streets as their turf. Soon the Guardian Angels were opening chapters nationwide and eventually in Europe, Australia, Asia, and South America. At the same time, police departments and city governments were also beginning to grasp the concept of community-oriented policing. They soon realized that citizens could do a lot more for their country.

 

Then, in April 2004, Charl Viljoen, a Cape Town City Police constable who read about the Guardian Angels when he was a child sent an email to the Guardian Angels in New York asking how he could go about opening a chapter here, and was pleasantly surprised when Curtis Sliwa telephoned him from New York offering his help. This exchange resulted in 5 Guardian Angels visiting Cape Town and the first chapter in Africa opening up.

© Cape Town Guardian Angels

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