10/08/2026
A Women’s Month Message — Far Beyond Our Summit and Top Shot
Lynette Oxley | GOSA Girls on Fire
As we move through Women’s Month, I find myself both shocked — and sadly, no longer surprised — by the extreme cruelty that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another.
We began this month with news of the alleged murder of Cameron Waldeck Cooks, reportedly at the hands of her boyfriend.
One woman. One story. One family whose lives will never be the same.
But hers is a story that made the news.
How many stories never do?
How many women are living behind closed doors with fear, abuse, violence and trauma that the rest of us will never hear about?
How many women are surviving rather than living?
And how many are desperately waiting for someone to stand beside them?
The stories behind 16 Days of ACTION
Every year during our 16 Days of ACTION, I interview women whose stories are sometimes almost impossible to comprehend.
I listen to story after story of unimaginable horror — of what one human being can do to another.
During those interviews, I try to maintain a calm façade. I listen. I ask questions. I give the woman in front of me the space to tell her story in her own words and in her own way.
But there have been many times when I have walked away afterwards and quietly cried.
Not because these women are weak.
Quite the opposite.
I cry because I cannot understand what they have had to endure — and because I am overwhelmed by the strength it must have taken for them to still be standing.
Very often, I also walk away with a lifelong friend.
Many of these remarkable women are subsequently nominated for the Girls on Fire Christa Swart Fighting Spirit Award.
That award is not about pretending that every story has a perfect ending. It honours women who fought back.
They may not always have won every battle. Their scars may remain. Their lives may never again look exactly as they did before.
But they fought.
And sometimes simply getting up again is an extraordinary act of courage.
I often feel as though I can see the dark shadow of their past walking beside them. We cannot erase that shadow. We cannot undo what happened.
What we can do is walk beside them and remind them of something important:
You can still be powerful.
You can still be empowered.
You can still take ACTION.
Your past does not have to have the final word.
Why Girls on Fire exists
It was through the work I do with women through GOSA Girls on Fire that I began meeting women from backgrounds of unimaginable sadness.
Some arrive confident. Some arrive frightened. Some arrive angry. Some arrive unsure of themselves.
And some arrive broken.
My goal has never been to pretend that Girls on Fire can magically fix somebody's life.
Our role is to walk alongside women and help them take some of their power back.
To show them that they can be strong.
That they can learn.
That they can become more aware.
That they can make choices.
That they can take responsibility for their own safety and future.
And, above all, that they can take ACTION.
One of the greatest privileges of the past years has been watching women who once needed someone to walk beside them eventually turn around and walk beside the next woman coming through our programmes.
That is empowerment.
That is sisterhood.
That is giving back.
And those are the stories that deserve to be told too.
The women who have my six
The volunteers of Girls on Fire amaze me every day.
They are not paid for their time. They do not do this for awards or accolades.
They simply pitch up.
When I ask for help, they are there.
They provide a shoulder to cry on. They give advice where they can. They share their knowledge. They encourage other women. They work behind the scenes when nobody is watching.
Most importantly, they lead by example.
Some have their own extraordinary stories. Others simply decided that they wanted to be part of a sisterhood that helps other women become stronger.
I am in absolute awe of the women standing beside me.
We use a phrase in the shooting world that means something very simple:
“I have your six.”
It means: I've got your back.
These women have each other's six.
And they certainly have mine.
The woman behind Girls on Fire
I am an ordinary woman running a business.
My business happens to be a gun shop, firearm training provider, sport shooting club and associated services.
That business, Tac SHAC, helps make the work I do through Girls on Fire possible.
Both worlds are passions of mine.
I enjoy fi****ms and sport shooting. I enjoy training people and watching them develop skills and confidence.
But I also have a very deep passion for the empowerment of women.
Tac SHAC sponsors a huge amount of my time — and let's be truthful, it is a lot of time. Every year we also put tens of thousands of rands into sponsored training and opportunities for women.
Does it take a personal toll?
Yes.
My husband, whom I have been married to for more than 38 years, often reminds me:
“When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you.”
There is truth in that.
When you spend enough time listening to stories of violence, abuse, loss and cruelty, you cannot simply switch them off when you go home.
My home life sometimes suffers when I give everything I have to getting another Girls on Fire programme off the ground.
And this year, I probably tested that more than ever.
The inaugural Women’s Summit 2026
For the first time, I decided that Girls on Fire would host a Women’s Summit, which took place on 1 and 2 August 2026.
I thought it would be easy.
I was wrong.
By the end, it took just about everything I had to get it done.
Was it worth it?
Absolutely.
And once again, I could never have done it alone.
I had the support of an extraordinary group of women. There were moments of exhaustion, frustration and, yes, even tears as we worked to bring everything together.
But we did it.
One of my personal mottos is:
RELENTLESS RESILIENCE.
And there was plenty of that behind this Summit.
I had been thinking about a Women’s Summit for several years. Then, while speaking to Tania Koen from the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation last year, she mentioned that the Foundation's tenth anniversary was approaching.
Something clicked.
It was time.
Why a Summit?
I started by reaching out to women I had met and become friends with through the work I do.
I asked whether they would give us their time and expertise free of charge.
That matters.
GOSA Girls on Fire is an NPC. We have no employees. The money we raise goes back into our programmes.
But the Summit was never supposed to be just another Women's Month event where we gathered in a room, listened to speeches, applauded and went home.
I wanted something more.
I wanted a platform where women could tell their stories without judgement.
I wanted survivors, advocates, professionals and experts in the same room.
I wanted difficult conversations.
I wanted us to talk not only about the problem of gender-based violence and femicide, but about solutions.
Most importantly, I wanted organisations that sometimes operate in separate spaces to recognise something fundamental:
No single organisation can solve GBVF alone.
We need each other.
We need government, civil society, academia, professionals, communities and business.
We need collaboration instead of competition.
And we need to move from talking about what should happen to actually doing something about it.
That is why one of the principles behind everything I do remains:
ACTION, NOT ACTIVISM.
Our Candle Lighting Ceremony — remembering the human beings behind the statistics
One of the most emotional moments of the Summit was our Candle Lighting Ceremony, led by Tania Koen.
Thirteen candles were lit.
But they were never simply candles.
Each flame represented a life, a story, a survivor, a family or a group of people whose experiences must not disappear into statistics.
We remembered women whose lives were taken, including Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp and Leigh Matthews.
We remembered Olivia Jasriel, whose legacy continues through the work being done in her name.
We lit candles acknowledging survivors of childhood abuse and survivors of r**e — those who have spoken publicly and the countless others whose stories remain private.
We remembered victims still waiting for justice and those whose families continue to carry the consequences of violence long after headlines disappear.
We lit a candle for all survivors of GBVF.
We recognised our young people and students, because if we truly want to change South Africa's future, the next generation has to be part of that change.
And ultimately we lit a candle representing unity.
Because that was what the Summit was about.
Different women.
Different stories.
Different professions.
Different organisations.
Different approaches.
One purpose.
There was something profoundly moving about seeing those flames burning together.
One candle can illuminate a small space.
Thirteen together shine brighter.
And perhaps that is also a metaphor for what organisations working in this sector need to understand:
We shine brighter when we stand together.
The Summit Resolution — words must become ACTION
I was determined that we would not leave the Summit with nothing more than photographs, memories and good intentions.
So we created a Summit Resolution.
At the conclusion of the Summit, contributing organisations committed themselves to working together and, importantly, to taking action.
The organisations represented in that commitment included GOSA Girls on Fire, the Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp Foundation, TEARS Foundation, SA Women Fight Back, Tshwane University of Technology, the South African Council for Business Women and PWG Group representing the business sector.
The principle behind the Resolution was simple:
GBVF is too big, too complex and too devastating for organisations to work in isolation.
Through the Resolution, we committed ourselves to greater collaboration; sharing knowledge, expertise and resources where possible; strengthening prevention and education; supporting survivors; promoting awareness that leads to meaningful action; encouraging accountability; and using our collective voices and networks to create change.
But perhaps more importantly, the Resolution represented a shift in thinking.
We do not have to agree on everything.
We do not have to operate in exactly the same way.
We do not have to surrender the identities of our individual organisations.
We simply have to recognise that the mission is bigger than any one of us.
There is enough work for everybody.
There are enough women who need us.
There are enough communities that need change.
We don't need to compete over who gets credit.
We need to ask:
What can I bring to the table?
What can you bring to the table?
And what can we achieve if we put those things together?
That Resolution was only a piece of paper when we signed it.
What gives it meaning is what we do after signing it.
And then came Top Shot...
I know that I missed Women's Day with this message.
The truth is that I am still trying to put my life back into some semblance of order after the Summit!
The Summit was followed almost immediately by Kragdag, and from there we moved straight into final preparations for another of our major Girls on Fire programmes — Top Shot 2026.
Top Shot is very different from the Summit, but at its heart the purpose is remarkably similar.
It is about giving women opportunities to challenge themselves.
To try something they may never have imagined themselves doing.
To discover confidence.
To support one another.
To walk away thinking:
“I can.”
But my Women's Month message is actually far bigger than the Summit.
It is bigger than Top Shot.
It is bigger than Girls on Fire.
And it certainly should not end when August ends.
I don't want a Women's Month. I want 365 days of ACTION.
I want us to build a world where women's safety, dignity and empowerment matter 365 days a year.
I want a world where organisations collaborate rather than compete.
Where we stop protecting territories and start protecting people.
Where survivors are not reduced to statistics.
Where women who have fought extraordinary battles are recognised not for what happened to them, but for what they chose to do afterwards.
Where strong women do not pull the ladder up behind them.
They reach back and help the next woman climb.
And where having another woman's back becomes normal.
At the conclusion of our Summit, Sonja Semak suggested that we do something beautifully simple.
We formed a circle.
Each person placed her hands on the shoulders of the woman in front of her.
For me, that circle became one of the strongest symbols of the entire Summit.
Because every woman was supporting someone.
And every woman was being supported by someone.
Everyone had somebody else's six.
Imagine if we could take that circle beyond one room.
Beyond one Summit.
Beyond one organisation.
Beyond Women's Month.
Imagine businesses, universities, NGOs, foundations, professionals, government departments, communities — and ordinary women — standing in that same metaphorical circle.
Not competing.
Not judging.
Not asking who gets the recognition.
Simply saying:
I've got you.
That is the future I want to work towards.
Not just during Women's Month.
Not just for 16 Days.
For 365 days of every year.
Because ultimately empowerment isn't something we should merely talk about.
It is something we do.
It is women walking beside women.
It is survivors becoming mentors.
It is organisations sharing resources.
It is ordinary people deciding that somebody else's suffering matters.
It is turning awareness into responsibility.
And responsibility into ACTION.
So my Women's Month message may be late.
But perhaps that is appropriate.
Because the work should never end when Women's Month does.
I have your six.
My hope is that more and more of us will be able to look at the woman beside us and genuinely say:
“I have your six too.”
Lynette Oxley
GOSA Girls on Fire
ACTION, NOT ACTIVISM.
RELENTLESS RESILIENCE.
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+2711 888 4037
