Violet
My work in Naledi in Soweto is primarily with the CPF (Community Policing Forum), but I have found a happy home with the volunteers who run the Victim Empowerment Centre or Trauma centre and have been able to organise some much needed training for them. My favourite training sessions are the ones done with the Deep Democracy team.
Most of the people who staff this unit and who fulfill this valuable role in society are pensioners. There are one or two young people who have joined the team and they amaze me with their insight and empathy at such a young age.
Violet is one of the people who work as a volunteer for this centre, with no compensation, but driven by the knowledge of the need for their service. She has been with the trauma centre since it opened late last year, and the more I interact with her, the more I realise what an absolute gem she is.
At this weeks training session with the Youth Desk from Naledi and the team from the Trauma Centre Violet arrived wearing the most beautiful shwe shwe outfit. Luckily I had my camera with me because I needed to take pictures of another training session that I had organised in the hall next door on Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice with the team from Khulisa - and so I could get some photos of her beautiful outfit. 
I have been waiting a long time to get an outfit with this kind of detail - normally when I see them I don't have my camera near me.
Violets dress is brown and yellow shwe shwe with extensive stitching detail around the neck, on the hem and even on the puff of the sleeves.
There is additional detail of yellow patterns on the sleeves and on the piece of material that Violet winds as a scarf on her head.
I am sad that the photos are a bit blurry, because there is absolutely nothing blurry about Violet. She is caring, compassionate, empathetic while at the same time being entirely confident. She also has great sense of humour. I could learn quite a bit from Violet just by being in her presence,
