MY JOURNEY OF HOPE IN FISANTEKRAAL

I often say that Fisantekraal didn’t just shape me – it raised me. My name is Curt Van Schalkwyk, and for the past 18 years, this community has been both my greatest challenge and my greatest teacher. 

I’m the only child of the late Collin and Joleen. I lost both my parents when I was still very young. My aunt took me in and raised me from the age of 12, giving me a sense of home again – until she too passed away when I was 18. To say I grew up fast is an understatement. But through every loss and every heartbreak, I gained something priceless: Resilience. A superpower I didn’t ask for, but one I wear proudly. Because now I know – every struggle is God’s way of preparing you for something greater. 

Fisantekraal is a place of raw reality. If you don’t discover your purpose, this place will hand you one – and it might not be the one you were created for. Drugs, gangs, and alcohol take more young lives here than we can count. I saw it happening around me, and I had to make a choice: either I become another statistic or I rise. I chose the latter. I chose to become someone others could look up to. 

I graduated from Fisantekraal High School in 2015 with a dream in my heart—to study further, to live a better life, and to become a voice of hope for others. I enrolled at NorthLink College to study Marketing Management, but halfway through, my finances gave out and I had to drop out. Life threw me another curveball. 

But God never left me. 

I worked in retail for two years, saving every cent I could. Then, finally, I got my break – I enrolled in university. And in 2019, a door opened that would forever change my life: I stepped into the NPO sector. I was given the chance to work with young people, to mentor them, to offer them what I never had – a safe space to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. 

Today, I stand not as a victim of my past, but as a testimony of God’s grace. 

God rewrote my story from hopelessness to hope. He healed the 12-year-old boy who once thought life wasn’t worth living. Through the work I now do at LIV Cape Town, I’ve found purpose. LIV is more than an organisation – it’s a place of light, a beacon in the darkness, a home where dreams are spoken out loud and lives are restored. 

Today, as a 28-year-old man, I stand tall. 

A graduate. 
A husband to a God-given wife. 
A soon-to-be father.  
A guardian to many children in our community. 
A servant to the Kingdom of God.