The boertjies who mix and fix

AFRIKANERS: WORKING MODEL OF CULTURE GROUP INTEGRATED IN BROADER SA COMMUNITY

- Marizka Coetzer

The size of your braai doesn't matter, it's rather the quality of the meat on the coals, the Betereinders say. Since 2019, pastor Johan Erasmus and his partners, Schalk van Heerden and Roelf Meyer have visited townships in Gauteng every month to host a braai and play soccer as catalysts for social upliftment for their nonprofit organisation known as the Betereinders.

Betereinders' co-founder Erasmus, 38, said black excellence and efficiency saved his life on Heritage Day in 2022, when he had a heart attack in the middle of Tembisa.

"I had dressed up as a farmer and after we played soccer, I started feeling ill and went to lie down behind a shack.

"I realised I was having a heart attack and a township like Tembisa was the last place I wanted to get help from," he said.

Ironically, Erasmus said, all the medical staff from the local clinic, including the cardiologist, were black that day and saved his life multiple times.

"With the type of heart attack I had and where I had it, my survival rate was small but they saved me.

"It's an experience that will stay with me forever.

"Black people saved my life. There's no doubt about it," he said.