# Mitchells Plain unites to tackle violence and unemployment

An episode of [Afternoon Drive with John Maytham](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1212305258), 27 Oct 2026, 5:39.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/1951050295/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/e2113905-04ff-472c-9fff-a6cd00b63b20/5c13d5d2-dddc-4f9f-a865-b4f00100afd3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=cab9ce5d-42b6-4239-9177-a6cd00b6d1ff

John Maytham speaks to Lesley Ann van Selm, founder and managing director of Khulisa Social Solutions, about efforts to tackle unemployment, gangsterism, substance abuse and gender-based violence in Mitchells Plain by connecting community organisations with existing government services and support programmes. Presenter John Maytham is an actor and author-turned-talk radio veteran and seasoned journalist. His show serves a round-up of local and international news coupled with the latest in business, sport, traffic and weather. The host’s eclectic interests mean the program often surprises the audience with intriguing book reviews and inspiring interviews profiling artists. A daily highlight is Rapid Fire, just after 5:30pm. CapeTalk fans call in, to stump the presenter with their general knowledge questions. Another firm favourite is the humorous Thursday crossing with award-winning journalist Rebecca Davis, called “Plan B”. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Afternoon Drive with John Maytham Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 15:00 and 18:00 (SA Time) to Afternoon Drive with John Maytham broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/BSFy4Cn or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/n8nWt4x Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: My next guest is Dr. Leslie-Anne van Zyl, Managing Director
[0:04] Speaker 1: and Founder of Colisa Solutions, who, just a couple of
[0:09] Speaker 1: days ago, brought together community organizations from Beacon Valley, Tafelsach, Eastridge, Rocklands,
[0:16] Speaker 1: and Freedom Park for something called Mitchell's Plain Impact Connect. Leslie,
[0:22] Speaker 1: a very good afternoon. Thank you for your time.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Hi, and to you and all your listeners. The.
[0:29] Speaker 1: The name says it all. Connect for better impact. That's
[0:33] Speaker 1: what you're trying to do. Correct.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Through? Right.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Sorry, yes? I'm listening.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Okay, so basically Connect, what Police has done is over
[0:46] Speaker 2: the past year and a half, we've introduced an AI-generated
[0:51] Speaker 2: tool that analyzes community voices and finds out what their
[0:55] Speaker 2: solutions to their problems are through lived experiences. And what
[0:59] Speaker 2: we found with over 15,000 community members is the fragmentation,
[1:04] Speaker 2: the unreduced needs, and the need for communities to become
[1:08] Speaker 2: a lot more cohesive. So our mission now is to
[1:11] Speaker 2: try to forward relationships between NGOs, looking where the gaps
[1:15] Speaker 2: are with municipal services, looking where the gaps are with
[1:18] Speaker 2: corporate investing in different areas without really, really understanding what
[1:22] Speaker 2: the community's needs are and how their lived experiences that
[1:27] Speaker 2: are unaddressed can actually be addressed.
[1:31] Speaker 1: This is relatively recent, but is it possible to see
[1:36] Speaker 1: signs of success? To use the cliche, are you starting
[1:39] Speaker 1: to see green shoots as a result of this analysis
[1:42] Speaker 1: and this connecting?
[1:44] Speaker 2: Well, Kinesis is 29 years old, and we've been working
[1:48] Speaker 2: in the same communities where we started ever since. So
[1:50] Speaker 2: we've been in Alexander for 25 years.
[1:52] Speaker 1: What I meant was the AI analysis is relatively new.
[1:54] Speaker 2: Oh, the AI analysis. Yes, dialogue circles have always been
[1:57] Speaker 2: part of Kinesis' work. When we started our first rehabilitation program,
[2:01] Speaker 2: it was listening to stories and finding out from the stories,
[2:05] Speaker 2: asking people not what did you do, but what happened
[2:07] Speaker 2: to you. So even though the AI analysis is new,
[2:10] Speaker 2: we've been able to document the causal factors and the
[2:13] Speaker 2: adverse childhood experiences that young people have gone through that
[2:16] Speaker 2: have led to their behaviors for many, many years.
[2:21] Speaker 1: The media release that led to our conversation says what
[2:25] Speaker 1: I think is obvious to people who live in these areas,
[2:28] Speaker 1: that soup kitchens, creches, churches, community workers in the various
[2:31] Speaker 1: parts of Mitchell's Plain are feeding and counseling and protecting
[2:34] Speaker 1: thousands of residents every month, often from their own homes,
[2:38] Speaker 1: yards and garages, and are often paying for food out
[2:41] Speaker 1: of their own pockets. And there is a sense that
[2:44] Speaker 1: community is strength, that togetherness, that unity is strength. That's
[2:48] Speaker 1: the national motto after all. And so they come together
[2:53] Speaker 1: and there is a, not just an individual, but there's
[2:57] Speaker 1: an organizational realization that the issues that they're dealing with, unemployment, gangsterism,
[3:03] Speaker 1: substance abuse, GBV, that they're not separate problems. It's one cycle.
[3:09] Speaker 1: with different spokes and working together makes it that much
[3:14] Speaker 1: more possible to make a positive impact.
[3:18] Speaker 2: Correct. And it's a disconnect between the NGOs because there's
[3:21] Speaker 2: so little funding and because they're so invisible and because
[3:24] Speaker 2: they have little access to actually have their data and
[3:29] Speaker 2: their services properly profiled, they continue to do the work
[3:33] Speaker 2: without proper support. So a large part of Khalid's work
[3:36] Speaker 2: is capacitating NGOs to enable them to actually become eligible
[3:41] Speaker 2: for funding, to become compliant for funding from the government.
[3:45] Speaker 2: And this is now what we're aiming to do is
[3:47] Speaker 2: to look at the collective needs of these NGOs, capacitate
[3:51] Speaker 2: them while simultaneously assisting them in identifying the needs of
[3:56] Speaker 2: their own beneficiaries so we can start mapping out the
[3:59] Speaker 2: real impact that they're having, not only as individual NGOs,
[4:03] Speaker 2: but as NGOs as a collective. So we will be
[4:06] Speaker 2: able to track all of them together in one ecosystem
[4:09] Speaker 2: and look at the connection that they are having between
[4:12] Speaker 2: each other in the ecosystem of Mitchell's Plains.
[4:16] Speaker 1: Because goodness knows I've interviewed enough utterly remarkable people working
[4:21] Speaker 1: against what from the outside seem like impossible odds to
[4:25] Speaker 1: make things better for people who are less well off
[4:30] Speaker 1: in their street, in their suburb, in their block. And
[4:34] Speaker 1: I mean, if all of those individual excellences can be connected,
[4:39] Speaker 1: gridded together, then a lot becomes possible.
[4:44] Speaker 2: Absolutely, and especially if you're able to articulate the data.
[4:49] Speaker 2: So with Khaleesa now, we're actually launching this at a
[4:53] Speaker 2: webinar on Thursday evening, but we've developed a database now where,
[4:59] Speaker 2: for example, we are busy uploading the data of the
[5:02] Speaker 2: NGOs that we worked with last week. is every beneficiary
[5:05] Speaker 2: they have, what they do, the report back on what
[5:08] Speaker 2: the beneficiaries have said about them. And by doing so,
[5:11] Speaker 2: we can actually weave together an ecosystem map of Mitchell's
[5:14] Speaker 2: Plain and be able to link what assets there are
[5:17] Speaker 2: in the community that we could link them with, but
[5:19] Speaker 2: most importantly, start demonstrating the real impact that they're having
[5:23] Speaker 2: and put them as part of an asset map in
[5:26] Speaker 2: an ecosystem where we could start seeing alignment with opportunities
[5:30] Speaker 2: that exist that they wouldn't normally have access to.
[5:33] Speaker 1: Thank you very much to Dr. Leslie-Anne van Selm, Managing
[5:36] Speaker 1: Director and Founder of Kalesa Solutions.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.