Capt Breeda Koopman was elected as the Policewoman of the Year at the SAPS Annual National Excellence Awards ceremony held at the Voortrekker Monument in Tshwane/Pretoria on 27 March 2014.
The SAPS Annual National Excellence Awards aim to encourage employees to go beyond the normal call of duty in protecting and serving the citizens of South Africa. Capt Koopman, who joined the SAPS 13 years ago after first working at the Correctional Services’ Marketing Division, won the award as a result of her commitment to the people of Eersterust, a community just outside of Tshwane/Pretoria. “Eersterust is my home, the place where I hail from. Therefore it is my passion to assist the people in my community, especially children and teenagers, so that they do not turn to drugs or crime.” With her sights firmly set on this goal, Capt Koopman started the My Kassie 2nd Chanz Foundation (mykassie.com), a non-profit organisation aimed to equip the poorer people in the community of Eersterust with knowledge and skills.
The My Kassie 2nd Chanz Foundation is run from a neat wooden structure serving as office space next to her parents’ home. After entering into partnerships with NGOs and several other non-profit organisations during 2012 and 2013, the Foundation has successfully launched a number of programmes focusing on education, training and development in order to better equip people for the labour market. In addition to developing job interview skills and conducting study interventions, the Foundation also serves to introduce the community to government services such as Sassa and Home Affairs. “It is so rewarding to see the joy on people’s faces when they graduate, or register their children for birth certificates for the first time, or find out that they qualify for pension or other government grants,’ Capt Koopman said.
Other programmes aimed at hands-on skills development include the entrepreneurial Hair-a-Thon and the Young Mother’s Intervention. “We offer several programmes, for example teaching teenage moms to accept responsibility for their babies’ futures and to save money for school and other necessities. Many young people have never been exposed to a formal work environment and they do not always know how to act and behave in such settings. We strive to bridge that gap, providing them with basic skills such as telephone etiquette and building their confidence in social situations. When they are ready to enter the labour market, we help them to prepare their CVs and we also help them to find work. The majority start out by working in, for example, assembly lines in factories, but we also offer skills training such as welding for those who want to learn a trade.” According to Capt Koopman the Foundation had assisted about 70 formerly unemployed young people of Eersterust to find jobs in 2013.
Capt Koopman said that although the journey has been fraught with difficulties so far, it has been very rewarding to see people’s lives changing for the better. “It is hard for me to see young parents with criminal records struggling to look after their children. The Foundation affords those entrapped in a cycle of crime a chance to do things differently the second time around. We allow them to make wiser choices and develop their skills and innate potential. They need self-belief to rise above their circumstances – I believe in them,” she said.
Another programme close to Capt Koopman’s heart is the Gazat makeover programme which assists people in improving their physical living conditions. The programme also aims to address the nourishment – both physical and emotional – and social needs of families living in substandard housing. Her goal is to expand Gazat to various parts of the country so that other communities may also benefit from the initiative. She encouraged communities to become involved in nation building activities, saying that: “Remember, the more people are involved, the bigger the impact on the socio-economic development of our country and the revitalisation of our moral standing as a nation.”
When considering the high dropout rate from schools, high number of teenage pregnancies, proliferation of drug use among the youth and the scarcity of jobs in relation to escalating population growth, Capt Koopman’s approach in addressing the social-economic reasons for crime right where it matters, at the heart of her own community, is to be applauded. A worthy winner of the Policewoman of the Year Award, indeed.