The Betereinders: Building bridges through braais and soccer

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.

A Betereinders life-changing experience

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.

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Building community through sports and braai

Since that day, Erasmus and his partners have been hosting braais from Tembisa, Mamelodi and Hammanskraal to Brandvlei – or where they find a space next to the road.

“We have a group of people who have joined us and the next thing you know we are playing soccer with them.

“We have been humiliated by those kids in the township.

“Some are 10 years old and they run circles around us and kick the ball through our legs. It’s embarrassing.”

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Friendship as a solution

Erasmus said the solution to South Africa’s problems was friendship and it was on the soccer field that they identified projects or where help was needed.

“It is not about starting projects, but building friendships and out of those friendships we start projects.

“It isn’t about starting new projects, but rather adding to existing projects and helping make them more successful,” he added.

Betereinders has several stakeholders, including an auditor, a farmer and black directors. It works with churches and is known for their pothole mix – “gatvol” pothole mix – that they use in the townships.

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A different vision for Afrikaners

Betereinders’ other cofounder Schalk van Heerden, 48, a minister from Johannesburg, describes himself as a “boertjie” who has spent thousands of hours in hundreds of townships. “I have always just felt welcome and safe.

“I understand South Africans differently than your average citizen who watches the news and thinks [Julius] Malema and the ANC represent all the black people.

“We might be a fart against thunder, a micro voice, but we do this for ourselves.

“We don’t want to take over the world or the country, we are not competing with anyone, we are showing a small gesture of how I should live as an Afrikaner so that my child can be proud of me as a father.

“It’s a small braai with a small piece of steak for our small organisation, but it is about the quality of the meat,” he said.

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Breaking down isolation

Van Heerden said in South Africa the Afrikaner voice is dominated by a group of people who want to keep to themselves. “They choose to be apart from the rest of South Africa.

“That is not what I want for my child. That’s not the meaning of the Afrikaner – isolated and apart.

“Why the Betereinders? Because I want to show my child what an awesome Afrikaner is.

“An Afrikaner is someone who mixes, not someone who hides away. A real South African is willing to mix and fix together.”

“That’s why clowns like us need to be a micro voice for the Afrikaners – to say there’s another way of being an Afrikaner.”

“We shouldn’t get stuck on politics. Our blood is red, whether your name is Sipho from the kasi or Schalk from the suburbs, our blood is red and we can stand together and should work together.

“The only way our country will be safe is if our country is healthy. Healthy means opportunities and less poverty,” he said.

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