How a flower can help prevent abuse or suicide among children in SA’s high-violence areas

In communities shaped by violence, surrounded by conflict and instability, in homes under financial distress, and in schools carrying challenges far beyond education, children often grow up having to manage life on their own.

Our nervous systems are not fully mature until about the age of 25. From early childhood, neural pathways supporting emotional regulation and cognitive development are still forming, while the prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision-making, impulse control and risk assessment is among the last areas to develop.

What happens when a child’s nervous system must learn to survive before they are able to dream?

Fear, anger and sadness often leave children confused and insecure, without the skills or space to process these emotions. Feelings are ignored or suppressed and what’s frequently mistaken for coping is simply survival. Children are asked to identify with being abused, suicidal, depressed or anxious, in order to get support. However, many children actively avoid this terminology, because it carries stigma and shame.

Our behaviour as adults is often shaped by childhood experiences. Abuse, neglect, dysfunction and chronic fear experienced in our early developmental years can surface later as violence towards others, disengagement, self-harm and unhealthy habits. This shapes the society we live in.

The consequences are visible. Suicide is a leading cause of death among young people in South Africa, and unemployment is nearing 50% among the same group.

In this country, 118 rapes are reported daily, and 123,000 live births was the last recorded number among mothers aged 19 and below (perspective: Soccer city can accommodate 94,736 people).

These are not isolated social failures, they are outcomes of prolonged emotional, economic and structural pressure.

Could a flower be a beautiful, fragrant solution?

Human Nature Africa’s Plant Play is a programme designed to enable children to have play time that is fun as well as fulfilling by encouraging them to grow a flower – a hyacinth, deliberately chosen to be non-food, visually beautiful and fragrant. If the bulb is cut open, the flower is already inside, visually representative of the beauty within us all. When given time and care, it will appear.

The responsibility is age-appropriate and it carries no survival pressure. Flowers allow children to experience exploration, responsibility and growth without expectation. A flower does not determine whether a household eats, it does not “punish” without reason, and its behaviour can be anticipated or easily understood based on probabilities like overwatering or overexposure to the sun.

Diepsloot, Johannesburg, was chosen for the four-month pilot project because it is one of the highest gender-based violence areas within the country, determined by reported cases. Abuse is often linked to unresolved trauma, poor emotional regulation and social norms that make violence acceptable.

Guided by youth facilitators employed from the community, 265 pupils between the ages of 10 and 15 were given the flower bulb, soil and a pot to keep and take home. For some it is the first thing they have ever owned. The intention – to potentially identify at-home risk and case identification, that could be picked up during the weekly Plant Play sessions.

On day one, a 12-year-old girl raised her hand and said she cannot take her plant home.

“When my mom and dad fight, they break things.”

That moment changed the room.

The children were asked why they thought they had been given the plants. Some of the boys said the flowers were pointless because they could not be eaten. Most of the girls said the plants were to teach them how to be mothers. Neither response reflected childhood curiosity or play; both revealed how early survival and gender roles had already replaced imagination.

We live in a society where boys and men are taught to suppress emotion, and that silence later erupts through harm to themselves or others. Children living with unthinkable circumstances have every reason to be angry, withdrawn or resistant, especially when bullying has intensified through increased digital access.

However, through the Plant Play programme, the children became gentle. They became children again. They began to play.

These bonds between child and plant resulted in powerful relationships among peers over the four months from bulb to bloom. It was an emotional journey for each child. One that reflected life and that equally had the ability to change a life.

Six plants did not survive. Those children were not isolated; the group took them in, shared plants and experiences and supported one another, as you would expect in life. Each class was a mixed-gender environment where equality and empathy came naturally, rather than being taught.

Children began to express a strong sense of self and form their own opinions as if their plant had given them rite of passage to be courageous and confident. All essential skills for navigating their realities.

Parents contacted us to say their children were speaking to them for the first time about real feelings. Teachers reported that children who had never spoken up before, raised their hands – not to ask about themselves, but about how to care for their plant.

A beautiful reassurance of emotional safety became clear early on in the classrooms. Children opened up, shared stories, supported each other and did not seem to fear failure. Caring for their plant taught the children how to regulate their emotions – they gained patience, learnt how to handle disappointment and how to recognise progress – all as they face situations that are not always within their control. Emotional expression became a norm.

We must reach beyond these 265 children. How can we not?

Plant Play has the ability to change the lives of children, their families and their communities. Ultimately shaping societies. It is a measurable investment in education, gender equality and violence prevention, reducing future social risk while strengthening communities and leaders of tomorrow. It aligns with our National Development Plan 2030 and the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals.

Societal stability depends on early, preventive behaviour change. The Human Nature Collective has united community, civil society, the private sector and the government, and needs Corporate South Africa to partner on Plant Play and scale the programme across South Africa’s 30 highest-ranking gender-based violence areas, reaching more than 15,000 children with the potential to improve 15,000 households.

Change is possible, collectively. And it starts with a flower. DM

Zonja Penzhorn is the founder and CEO of Human Nature Africa. Her work focuses on prevention at the intersection of human behaviour, addressing gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV and mental health.