Last month, right here in Johannesburg, something extraordinary happened at the close of the G20 Social Summit. President Cyril Ramaphosa stood up and declared Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) a National Disaster under the Disaster Management Act, 2002.

For every member of the Teddy Bear Foundation team, who sit in our Johannesburg clinic every single day holding children who have been raped, beaten, or forced to witness their mothers being brutalized, this felt like a moment we had been waiting decades for. And yet, like almost every frontline organization in this city and across the country, we are cautiously optimistic. Cautiously, because Johannesburg has heard powerful speeches before. Optimistic, because this time, the law itself now demands urgent, coordinated action.

Why “cautiously optimistic” feels like the only honest response

The declaration is historic. It legally forces every government department to treat GBVF as the life-threatening emergency it has always been. It unlocks the possibility of emergency funding, rapid-response plans, and resources flowing faster to places like our clinic in Crown Mines and the Thuthuzela Care Centres scattered across Gauteng.

But as our partners at Sonke Gender Justice pointed out so clearly, the proof will be in the regulations that still have to be written and gazetted. Bafana Khumalo, Co-Executive Director of Sonke Gender Justice, said: “As civil society we are cautiously optimistic about this classification and will be engaging with government to examine what this declaration truly means and whether it reflects what we have been calling for, particularly in relation to what will be gazetted in the regulations.”

We echo every word. Until we actually see:

• Regulations gazetted and published
• Emergency funding hitting the ground without the usual red tape
• Police vans racing through the streets of Alexandra, Soweto, and
• Hillbrow when a child or woman dials 10111
• Shelters and trauma counsellors fully staffed from Mamelodi to Orange Farm
• Perpetrators finally facing swift justice instead of endless postponements

…we will stay cautiously optimistic.

But the optimism is real.

 For the first time, the President has said out loud what every child who walks through our doors already knows in their soul:  This is a disaster.
And disasters require every single one of us to act. While Johannesburg waits for regulations, the children cannot wait. Every day in this city, another little girl or boy walks into our clinic carrying nightmares no child should ever have. That is why, even as we push government to move with the speed this disaster demands, we keep doing what we have done for more than 20 years right here in Johannesburg:

Handing every child a teddy bear to hold while they find the courage to speak
Providing free forensic medical exams, therapy, and court preparation
Fighting for justice in courts that still too often fail the smallest among us. You can turn cautious optimism into real, lasting hope. Here’s how you, yes, you reading this in Johannesburg or anywhere else can help right now:

• Drop off gently loved teddy bears at our clinic in Crown Mines . They are lifelines for terrified children who have nothing left to hold onto.
• Sponsor a therapy session, just R650 helps heal wounds that run deeper than most people can imagine.
• Share this post and tag your local leaders with one simple question:

When will the GBVF National Disaster regulations and emergency funding be released? Because cautious optimism only becomes historic change when all of us refuse to let this moment fade. From every small hand clutching a teddy bear in our Johannesburg clinic today: Thank you for standing with us. Cautiously! Fiercely! Hopefully!

#EndGBVF #16DaysOfActivism #NationalDisasterGBVF #ChildrenCantWait #JoburgFightsGBV #TeddyBearFoundation