Fathers Matter, A National Conversation on Violence, Presence, and the Men Who Stay

When Themba Dlamini survived a hijacking, it wasn’t the violence itself that stayed with him longest. It was how young the perpetrators were.

“Young enough to be my classmates. Young enough to still be someone’s sons,” says Dlamini, a husband, father of four, pastor, chartered accountant, and author of Village Boy: A Memoir of Fatherlessness. “And the question that has stayed with me ever since is: where were their fathers?”

That question is now at the centre of a broader national conversation being driven by Heartlines through its Fathers Matter programme, a campaign calling on fathers, families, and communities to recognise the role that positive male presence plays in preventing violence before it starts.