WeeklySA_AdminINVENTIVE: Young entrepreneur wants women to feel safer
By Bongiwe Mkhwanazi
Continuing violent sexual attacks on vulnerable members of the communities have prompted a young Gauteng woman to design unique and discreet self-defence products to help them feel safe in the streets.
Teneal Kock of Kibler Park, south of Johannesburg, says the high number of rape incidents of young girls in the suburb’s Lehae Section, together with the terrifying statistics from the National Sexual Violence Centre, had raised her concern and anxiety.
This had led Kock to design self-defence tools for use by young girls, mature women, as well as members the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual and, or Ally (LGBTQIA) society.
Kock said she was touched by the harrowing accounts of young and old rape survivors at the community centre that is operated by her mother in Kibler Park.
She had then decided to invent a rechargeable lipstick Tasers, commonly known as a weapon firing barbs attached by wires to batteries, which causes temporary paralysis, rape-alerting whistles, pepper sprays (causing temporary blindness) and pocket knives.
After the 23 year old Kock had realised that someone had to do more than transporting the rape victims to local health care centres and offering them counselling services, she and a friend had then decided to register a company called She-curity in July this year, with the view of also employing youths to sell their products.
She said that these tools are unique and discreet because the women’s would-be assailants would not be able to realise, immediately, that these are actually self-defence instruments. “We wish to help females to feel a lot safer with a pocket knife, and, or a safety key chain that looks like lipsticks, but would either be filled with pepper, or can be used as a Taser,” Kock told Weekly SA Mirror this week.
“And, like my mother, who feeds 1 500 unemployed people in her Non-Governmental Organisation, I also want to give back to the community through these self-defence products,” said the budding entrepreneur, who works from home. “There are perverts who could touch you in a wrong way, mostly against one’s will, while others could attempt to spike your drink so that they can fulfil their undesirable intentions. So you need to protect yourself, and that is where the She-curity products come in handy”.
Kock, who is also planning to teach self-defence lessons, said she wants her fellow females to feel safer in the streets, and to also enjoy going wherever they wanted, without fear. “I want to teach the necessary life skills to others, especially those who may be living in poverty and are susceptible to sexual abuse.
