nonceba

Khayelitsha is one of Cape Town's largest, most densely populated townships — a community created by apartheid's forced removals and shaped by decades of under-investment, overcrowding, unemployment, and the concentrated, compounding harms that come with those conditions. When Nonceba Family Counselling Centre was established there, it planted itself in the place where the need was greatest, right at 29 Tanga Street in the Eyethu section of the township, and it has stayed.

The name Nonceba is an isiXhosa name meaning "mercy" or "compassion." It is exactly what the centre offers: a place of professional, warm, skilled care for children and families caught in the grip of abuse.

Nonceba's founding observation — still central to its model — is that when a child has been sexually or physically abused, you cannot treat the child in isolation. Abuse happens in families and communities. Recovery requires the family. So while Nonceba's core focus is children who have been abused, the centre takes a whole-family approach: working with mothers, carers, and other family members as part of every child's healing process, and providing direct counselling services for women who have survived abuse themselves.

Children's Safe House

The Children's Safe House provides temporary, secure, and safe accommodation for children under 14 who have been removed from their home environment through a statutory process — meaning a formal decision by the Department of Social Development, the Department of Health, or the Department of Justice that the child cannot remain safely at home. These are children who have typically been sexually or physically abused, often by someone in their own household.

The safe house is managed by housemothers who supervise the children's social and domestic environment, while Nonceba's clinical team provides therapeutic intervention. Stays average three to six months. The aim is not just safety but healing — creating the conditions in which the child's recovery can begin and family or appropriate alternative placement can be prepared.

Children in the safe house have access to: - Individual counselling - Play therapy (a critical modality for young children who cannot process trauma through verbal communication alone) - Court support — preparation and accompaniment for the legal proceedings against their abuser - Hospital and clinic visits - Educational and life-skills programmes - Individual, group, and family counselling

Women's Shelter

The Women's Shelter provides temporary, secure, and safe accommodation to women — particularly women whose children have shared the abusive environment — who have survived rape, domestic violence, human trafficking, or other forms of abuse. Stays average three months. The therapeutic counselling provided to shelter residents is delivered by Nonceba's clinical staff.

Shelter residents have full access to all of Nonceba's services, including: - Counselling - Play therapy for their children - Court support and legal guidance - Hospital and clinic visits - Life skills training - Victim empowerment groups specifically for domestic violence survivors - Re-integration planning — care pathway management to support sustainable return to community life

Counselling for Adults — Rape, Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking

Nonceba's professional staff provide therapeutic counselling services to women who have survived rape, domestic violence, and human trafficking — whether or not they are residents of the shelter. This includes support with accessing medical, psychological, and legal services, and preparation and support for survivors navigating the court process as perpetrators are prosecuted.

Abuse Prevention Education Programme

Nonceba's community education programme works to change the environment in which abuse occurs — because individual healing, however thorough, is undermined if survivors return to communities where abuse is normalised, hidden, or unaddressed.

The programme delivers: - Awareness sessions in schools, churches, public halls, and via local radio - Parenting skills training - Health education, nutrition, and first aid - Child safety education — helping children and communities understand how abuse happens, how to prevent it, and what to do when it occurs

Fifteen years ago, Nonceba's clinical team noted a significant shift in perpetrator profiles: where previously abused children had primarily been abused by adult male caregivers, the organisation was increasingly seeing perpetrators who were teenagers and gangs — a change that required the programme to adapt and address peer violence, gang culture, and adolescent sexual aggression as well as adult perpetration.

Re-Integration Services

Nonceba's clinical staff manage re-integration planning as a core part of every client's care pathway — because sustainable recovery requires a plan for what comes after the shelter or counselling relationship ends. Family counselling is a key component, as re-integration into the family system is where long-term safety and healing is ultimately secured or undermined.

Nonceba Family Counselling Centre: 29 Tanga Street, Eyethu, Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Phone: 021 364 0135. Email: admin@nonceba.org. Website: nonceba.org. Women's Shelter and Children's Safe House — contact for access.