It was supposed to an exciting chapter in his life, the start of his journey to manhood. He and his friends were looking forward to it and counted down the days until they left.
“I thought of diving off a cliff and falling on the rocks,” he says. “Sometimes I wished a car would run over me, but I wasn’t brave enough to go through with these things.”The young man’s life changed when he met Gugulethu Sirayi, the founder of the Gugulethu Sirayi Foundation, a support programme that helps initiates who have suffered botched circumcisions.
“Botched circumcision is a devastating issue which has a severe effect on these young men,” Gugulethu says. There are over a thousand boys living without penises in the Eastern Cape alone, according to Nkululeko Nxesi of the Community Development Foundation of South Africa. She was devastated when she learnt what had happened to her son. “I was very upset he went without my permission, and then I had to care for him. He is my firstborn and I was hoping he would study and start working, so I can stop working on the farms,” Veliswa says.