{"id":87400,"date":"2011-08-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelstartblg.wpenginepowered.com\/rock-girl-safe-spaces\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T13:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T13:50:09","slug":"rock-girl-safe-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelstart.co.za\/blog\/rock-girl-safe-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"ROCK Girl Safe Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-20027\" href=\"https:\/\/travelstartstg.wpenginepowered.com\/rock-girl-safe-spaces\/rock-girl-final-logo-600x464-3\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-20027\" title=\"rock-girl-final-logo-600x464\" src=\"https:\/\/travelstartmu.wpenginepowered.com\/zablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/10\/rock-girl-final-logo-600x4642-300x232-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When visiting students at a school in Manenberg, one of the many disadvantaged areas in Cape Town, India Baird asked the girls what they would need to feel safe. To her surprise, their answer was a bench, to be placed outside the tuck shop. The girls went on to explain that they felt protected by the ladies working there. This inspired India to start the <a title=\"Rock Girl webpage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rockgirlsa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">ROCK Girl<\/a> Project&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This initiative seeks to reduce the incidence of violence in characteristcally unsafe areas by creating &#8220;safe spaces&#8221;. With the help of various artists and designers, women and girls in the community co-create unique benches which are then strategically placed in hand-picked, underpriviledged areas and serve to represent a place of refuge for anyone in need.<\/p>\n<p>For each safe space created with its ROCK Girl bench, a &#8220;sister&#8221; bench is placed in a prominent position within the city. Not only are these identical sister benches a work of art, they also create awareness of the help that is available within such communities.<\/p>\n<p>Travelstart is proud to be a sponsor in this project. Our benches will be placed near our office in Cape Town&#8217;s city centre with its sister bench at Thembalitsha&#8217;s School of Hope.<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in getting involved, join the campaign by SMSing &#8220;safer&#8221; to 31546 to make a R20 donation. Alternatively,\u00a0 SMS to vote for the location of the next bench to the same number, text &#8220;mountain&#8221; for Table Mountain, &#8220;civic&#8221; for Cape Town Civic Centre, or &#8220;mall&#8221; for St. Georges Mall.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s spread the word and make our country a safer place to live in!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When visiting students at a school in Manenberg, one of the many disadvantaged areas in Cape Town, India Baird asked the girls what they would need to feel safe. To her surprise, their answer was a bench, to be placed outside the tuck shop. The girls went on to explain that they felt protected by the ladies working there. This inspired India to start the &#8230; <a title=\"ROCK Girl Safe Spaces\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.travelstart.co.za\/blog\/rock-girl-safe-spaces\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about ROCK Girl Safe Spaces\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":87402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_destination_ratings":[],"_destination_review_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[454,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angels-travelstart-stuff","category-travelstart-stuff","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ROCK Girl Safe Spaces - Travelstart Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.travelstart.co.za\/blog\/rock-girl-safe-spaces\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ROCK Girl Safe Spaces - Travelstart Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When visiting students at a school in Manenberg, one of the many disadvantaged areas in Cape Town, India Baird asked the girls what they would need to feel safe. 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