- A Cape Town police officer is using his training to keep youngsters from sitting on street corners and engaging in criminal activity.
- Constable Sinovuyo Seti has been hailed as a local hero for his work in the community.
- He says he has no plans to stop teaching kids right from wrong in Mitchells Plain.
When Constable Sinovuyo Seti finishes his shift as a police officer and heads home, his work does not end.
Instead of switching off, the Mitchell’s Plain constable changes into training gear, grabs his cones and hula hoops, and steps onto the open pitch in front of his house to prepare for a different kind of duty – one aimed at keeping children off the streets and out of gangs.
Some of the children the constable teaches in his spare time.
For over a decade, he has patrolled the very same streets he now uses as a training ground for dozens of children.
Currently deployed under Operation Shanela, Seti – who serves under the sub-district’s top cop, station commander Brigadier Brian Muller – has become a firm favourite in his community and among peers.
Constable Seti and his commander, Colonel Wendy Nciweni.
But it is what happens outside his official hours that has quietly transformed a corner of Mitchells Plain.
How it all began
The initiative started organically.
“Normally, when I do my fitness training in my yard, I would occasionally go outside and continue training. I noticed that there were groups of kids sitting on corners gambling. It’s those kinds of gambling that would get the kids into serious trouble,” Seti says.
“Some of the kids noticed my training and started to come and practise with me. So it started becoming a norm and a habit for them to come and join me when I do my exercises and no longer sit and gamble.”
Some of the children and the officer during their daily afternoon exercise sessions.
At first, it was just three boys from his street who wanted help improving their soccer skills.
“They would come and ask me, ‘I’m playing midfield, my pace is too slow, please can you train me so I can run fast’,” he recalls.
Constable Seti teaching fitness to the youngsters in Mitchells Plain.
Seti started training those three boys. Then, more children joined, and soon, parents began knocking on his door.
An afternoon ritual
On most afternoons, up to 50 children – sometimes more – gather outside his home. They drop their school bags, knock eagerly and ask when training will begin.
“The first group comes at 12:30. The second group, 13:30. The third group, 14:30, when schools are done,” he says.
For boys wanting soccer training, he takes them on his rest days, Monday to Wednesday, between 17:00 and 18:00.
On working days, if children arrive and he is available, he still gives them 20 to 40 minutes.
“It does not affect me in my spare time or my private time, because it’s what I love. Exercising is what I love.”
Constable Seti, the officer who has been doing all he can to get youngsters in the area off the streets.
But this is about far more than fitness, Seti adds.
Closing the gap before gangs do
Whenever Seti jogged through his neighbourhood, he noticed groups of young boys sitting on corners – passing time in ways that could easily lead to more dangerous influences.
“When they do that, it is when they get the chance to discuss whatever they want to discuss and catch on to things which are not right,” he explains.
“There’s a lack of mentorship and guidance where I stay. If there’s no one to guide these kids and mentor them, someone else with wrong intentions will recruit them into the gang. So there’s that open gap which needs to be closed.
“So I closed that gap by all means, with the small amount of time that I have. I dedicate time to make sure I give guidance, because there’s a recruitment regime under way for these small kids. So I close that gate before someone else comes and intercepts them.”
In communities where criminal elements lure vulnerable boys with promises of money and belonging, Seti’s presence offers something else – structure, discipline and care.
“There’s a lot that needs to be done,” he says. “If there’s no mentorship and guidance, you have a lost community.”
Discipline with heart
The training sessions are carefully structured, the officer says.
“You must have a lot of energy. You need to set up your plan for that day. You can’t come to the kids and give exercises as if you just woke up from the grave. They come bursting with energy, so you need to be alive when you’re training them.”
Using cones, hula hoops and simple drills, he keeps exercises basic. Some children have underlying health conditions, and he is mindful not to push them too hard.
“Some parents have come to me and said the doctor advised that their kids must be active, but they don’t know how to start,” Seti explains. “They asked, ‘Can you please help us?’ I said the kids are welcome.”
But beyond the drills, he watches
“It’s where I check how the child is working with other kids. How do they behave? How do they react under pressure?” he adds.
“That is where you start to pick up the bullies. Or if something is not right with a child.”
If he notices a child withdrawing, scratching nervously, biting their nails or reacting unusually under stress, he gently approaches them – and later speaks to their parents.
The children know he is a police officer, and that is intentional.
“I’m trying to take away the stigma that police officers are not people you must run away from. They must feel welcome to approach us.”
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He believes children are often the first to sense when something is wrong in a community.
“You can tell by the way they sit, by their facial expressions – something is not right, something is about to happen.”
Sometimes, during training, his police instincts surface. When he calls out “Regroup!” or “Form up!” the children snap into line.
“I instruct them. When I say I’m giving you 10 seconds, they know they must be standing in front of me,” he says with a laugh. “I tell my colleagues I’m grooming special task forces.
But beneath the humour is conviction
“Fighting crime is not only for police officers – it’s for the community. If the community is broken, the whole society is broken.”
Parents say the impact has been undeniable.
“I don’t think he fully realises the joy he’s bringing to the community. These older kids used to sit on the corner and smoke their lives away while gambling, but now they joined Seti’s fitness classes and are even talking about joining the police,” says parent Anthea Smith.
She adds that even on his rest days, when he is exhausted from his police job, he still makes time for the children.
“The change he has brought here is once again testimony that with sport and activities in communities, children will stay out of trouble,” Smith says.
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For Jo-Anne Cloete and Michael Brown, the change at home has been immediate.
“My son is now so eager to go to school, he hurries home to finish his homework so that he can go to Officer Seti. That nonsense of hanging around with friends at corner shops has come to an end, and I am so happy about that,” says Cloete.
Brown adds: “Where he gets the energy, I don’t know, but thank God for Officer Seti. He’s such a wonderful breath of fresh air to our community.”
For now, the open pitch outside his home has become more than a patch of grass.
And every afternoon, when the knock comes at his door, and a small voice asks, “Can we start?”, Constable Seti answers – not with authority alone, but with heart.
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