Youth-led mural project in Beacon Valley addresses gang violence and food

Children from AZ Berman Primary School in Beacon Valley have created a new mural titled “Grow Food, Not War”, a project aimed at addressing the impact of gang violence on young people in the area.

The Honeybush Healing Arts Platform facilitated the mural and follows a similar youth art initiative launched last year in Tafelsig.

Young artists from Tafelsig collaborated with AZ Berman pupils to complete the Beacon Valley wall, which focuses on the theme of “Food Sustainability vs. Gang and Gun Violence,” which challenges the community to imagine safer, self-sustaining neighbourhoods where children can grow, learn, and thrive.

Project founder Saba Zahara Honeybush said the intention was to give young people a space to reflect on their environment and to encourage alternatives to violence. She said the artwork also serves as a memorial to former AZ Berman pupil Adrian Williams, who was killed in gang crossfire, and to other children affected by ongoing violence on the Cape Flats.

“I wanted to bring the children of Tafelsig and Beacon Valley together to honour their struggles and vision through the power of public art in a red zone region of Mitchells Plain, where innocent young children, youth in general, and people of all ages are killed daily,” she said.

Ms Honeybush emphasised the need for innovative ways to encourage children to reflect on and process trauma. 

“We also need to encourage our communities to be self-sustainable. This wall is opposite an empty food garden, but could look different if food were growing here,” she said.

The mural faces a large sandy plot that the school has set aside for a future food-growing initiative, visually reinforcing the call to action: “Grow Food, Not War.”

Teacher Sharon Orange, who has championed the project at the school, said that the children will continue working in the garden - even during school holidays. She added that they have partnered with Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden to access soil and plant flowers around the school grounds.

“What they see outside traumatises them,” she said. “That is why we have such a project. We want the parents involved too—they need to come and assist the children.”

Community liaison Jerome Williams said the community is excited and energised. Having lived in Beacon Valley for 40 years, he said he has never seen a project so positive and uplifting.

He said the walls were once filled with gang markings, but now they carry messages of growth and hope.

“The parents do not know how talented their children can be because we are faced daily with gangs and violence. But this mural is waking people up,” he said. “Parents must support their children, not only with money but with their time and even snacks.”

The children themselves, including Jemma Joseph, Requel Campher, Ferenzo De Jongh, and Rhania Feronza, said they loved working in the garden and were grateful to the teachers and project leader.

Requel, who is in Grade 5, said: “There is a lot of corruption, drugs, killing, and abduction in Mitchells Plain. If we grew more food, many people would live in peace and wouldn’t die of starvation.”

Seventeen-year-old Ferenzo De Jongh from Tafelsig added, “I feel healed through art—painting on a wall and, for a change, not painting gangsterism stuff. Just expressing what’s on my mind and spreading hope to the young ones inspires me.

"If more people focused on growing food and not wars, we’d have sustainability, and people wouldn’t go hungry like they do now.”