Morekolodi Salema Mankuroane, a Gender-Based Violence activist for 8 years from Taung Village in the North West province developed a creative way to combat GBV using technology. Gender-based violence (GBV) is a serious and pervasive issue in South Africa that affects practically every facet of daily life. Systematic and deeply engrained in South Africa's institutions, cultures and traditions is GBV which disproportionately impacts women and girls. As an innovator that has started innovating from his high school days, Mankuroane started his company called “Mansalema” which specialises in developing solutions to solve social ills and offer security solutions in a digital form in 2020 during the hard lockdown and GBV was also a pandemic.
“Salema is derived from Jerusalem ‘the land of milk and honey’. I used this name for the company since our work is to bring peace and give our clients the best I had been an activist for over 8 years and it seemed like the GBV problem was not being faced so I had to fight other means to ¬fight the GBV war. As an innovative person I then worked on my ideas to use technology to fight GBV.” said Mankuroane.
Mansalema has a belt called the Salema belt 01, which is laser-printed and has a barcode and your printed initials on it. “The belt is used to help identify people when they are found lost or confused. The belt will also be used if people are found in accidents and cannot identify themselves, this is to help the SAPS with the missing persons searching and also help old and very young kids when they get lost,” said Mankuroane.
According to police statistics, 988 women died as a result of domestic abuse in South Africa between April 2020 and September 2022. According to a report presented at the second presidential summit on the subject, which was held in Midrand in early November 2022, the government accomplished slightly over a fi¬fth of the targets in its action plan to reduce gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide in roughly the same time frame.
In light of the alarming statistics, there are growing calls to eliminate all forms of violence against children, women, men and the LGBTI+ community in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Mansalema uses Salema APP which works when you add 3 emergency contacts to the app and when in danger you just need to shake your phone without logging in and it will send an alert to the contacts with your location. The alert is then sent to their office, where they use drones to help track the person in danger and to track the perpetrators and alert the SAPS.
