MTN Joyous Celebration is hosting a concert with a purpose on Sunday.
The award-winning gospel group will host the 24th instalment of their annual concert, The Rock, at the Soweto Theatre.
Twenty percent of the proceeds will be donated to gender-based violence organisations.
This is also to support one of their cast members, Mbali Lekhuleni, who was molested.
Group co-founder, Lindelani Mkhize, said they realised that abuse was growing daily and needed to speak up.
“We need to give support and educate people about gender-based violence. The lockdown put many people in difficult situations, leaving them with anxiety and depression.
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“But as Joyous, we’re saying let’s not take out our anger and issues on women,” he said.
Lindelani said the gospel powerhouse has a team solely dedicated to finding organisations that get the donations.
“At this moment, we’re not sure how many we can donate to,” he said.
“Had we done our normal concerts at big venues, we’d be able to estimate the money we’d have made.
“Unfortunately, we’re hosting a virtual concert and people are still trying to understand how it works.
“We’ll announce the organisations once we’re sure.”
Mbali said she was molested as a child by a family member.
“After going through that trauma, I was raped when I was 16 years old by a random guy,” she said.
“He had a gun. After he raped me again for the second time, I got hold of his gun and shot him. He died on the spot.”
Mbali said she was humbled to be working on this project.
“Music was the only thing that healed me. Not even therapy could help. So, it’s a big deal for me to work with Joyous to help victims of gender-based violence,” she said.
When you go through such and there’s murder involved, you get rejected, but they didn’t. They took me as I was.”
