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www.thevillagenews.co.za
27 November 2019
Teen boxer on a golden streak Writer and Photographer Sarah Taylor
skills, but she has also built positive friendships with fellow boxers, aged 8 to 25 years.
A
talented Zwelihle teenage girl is making waves in boxing circles in the Western Cape. Sixteen-year-old Nambita ‘Cassandra’ Nywebeni won gold in her first match at a women’s month festival held at the University of the Western Cape in September after boxing for only three months at the Overstrand Whale Boxing Club (OWBC).
“Everyone is my friend here,” she says, beaming around the club, which consists of a concrete central square surrounded by three containers with boxing and general gym equipment, sourced with the help of the club’s patron, local businesswoman Carole Dods’s fundraising efforts. Mzi is clearly a very positive role model and father figure to the 40-odd young boxers who attend the free classes he offers. Many children in Zwelihle, like Cassandra, have grown up in single-parent (usually mother-headed) homes.
“I started boxing in June, after I was introduced to the boxing club by another girl. Although she stopped boxing, I have carried on, coming to practice every single day,” she says. “I also always box with boys as there are no other girls at the club at the moment.”
While boxing is an excellent exercise, Cassandra says her new sport also makes her feel empowered as a young woman.
These, says Cassandra, are the secrets of her recent boxing success, which saw her triumph in the UWC competition.
“I’m glad I had the guts to come to boxing in the first place. Many people are scared and don’t want to do it, because they don’t want to be beaten up,” she says, although another reason she wanted to join the club is because it offers her a safe and peaceful haven.
Mzi Damesi’s OWBC, founded in 2007 and run on sponsorships and donations, offers free boxing training daily, from 5 to 7pm at the club, which is based at the Zwelihle Sports Grounds. New member Cassandra is a learner at Hermanus High School, where she has been excelling at sport, playing in the first teams for netball, tennis, cricket and hockey. “Since starting to box and becoming serious about it, I have asked my principal, Mr Hassenkamp, if I can move away from school sports and focus on my boxing,” she says.
“I have seen some of my friends in Zwelihle heading down the wrong path of drinking and smoking. Thanks to boxing, I have moved away from stuff like that before getting sucked into bad habits. I am also much safer when I’m at practice because every time when I get home there are always problems like friends being drunk,” says Cassandra.
At the club, Cassandra has not only learnt life-saving and confidence-building self-defence
She has tried to encourage her female friends to join her in boxing, but they say they don’t want
Mzi Damesi of the Overstrand Whale Boxing Club is very proud of his young female boxer, Cassandra Nywebeni. to be fit and muscular, as they think they won’t look feminine. “I used to fear walking through Zwelihle, scared that someone might try to rob or rape me, but since joining this club, I feel a lot stronger, less scared and more able to protect myself,” says Cassandra, appealing to other Overberg teens to take up the challenge. “I love the physically hard practice of boxing, knowing that it will benefit me in many ways.
“It mostly helps people who have anger issues. When you learn to box, you don’t react straightaway to small things. Now that I am boxing, I don’t get angry like I may have done in the past, as I know that I can always box out the anger later. "Boxing works as mental and physical therapy, and it helps with discipline too, as we need to respect ourselves and each other, our elders and the sport.”
Hermanus
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