Thousands of participants from all sides of South Africa’s liberation war still struggle to find a place in post-apartheid society.
But a new project, aimed at helping those who have not found a home in the new national defence force, holds out hope for these forgotten soldiers.
The project is called Tswelopele, and its focus on psychosocial factors is what distinguishes it from the handful of other attempts at social reintegration, says Rachel Prinsloo, the project leader. It addresses veterans’ sense of betrayal and ostracism, and the trauma of leaving their militarised identities behind.
About 10 000 combatants have been demobilised since 1996.
A pilot run by the project included 20 former combatants from Umkhonto weSizwe and 20 from the Azanian People’s Liberation Army over three months at the end of last year.
The medium-term aims of the project are to ensure greater social reintegration, increased levels of employability and accessing of further training by veterans, says Clint van der Walt, project researcher.
While 35 of the 40 veterans have registered at Technikon SA and Technisa (a distance education institution), monitoring their employability and social reintegration was less successful, Van der Walt says. This is because of the project’s lack of post-training financial and informational resources.
Further pilots are planned in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.