Women’s Month: Great and Notable Cape Town Women

Photo credit: Carmen Comrie via Unsplash

Cape Town is full of inspirational people, including some truly incredible, strong and brave women.

From mothers to teachers, caregivers and community workers to role models, the list of great or notable Cape Town women is long and endlessly inspiring.

As it’s Women’s Month (August) in South Africa, we want to shine a light on some of these amazing women, based in Hout Bay and surrounds:

Marlena van der Walt

Photo credit: Little Lambs Christian Educare via Facebook

In the late 1990s, Hout Bay resident Marlena van der Walt and her husband, Johann, became aware of the struggles that many Hout Bay farm workers at local Kronendal farm were facing — and Marlena and Johann knew they needed to help.

So, what started as making soup for the farm workers soon grew into the idea to create a daycare centre, where the mothers could care for the children. Marlena taught many of these women to read and write and in time, mothers from Imizamo Yethu also sought child care assistance. And that’s how the journey began before, in 1999, the Little Lambs centre was opened. To date, it’s become both a source of hope and care in the local community and remains one of South Africa’s most successful Early childhood development (ECD) centres.

But Marlena and Johann didn’t stop with Little Lambs; they also established a wonderful trust, called the SEEDS Trust to help oversee and govern the burgeoning Little Lambs centre.

Today, Marlena remains the founder and trustee at SEEDS Trust, which wonderfully supports Little Lambs and partners with four other local organisations.

Marlena is proof that you can champion a worthy cause and create something that can literally impact hundreds of lives. She’s truly inspirational; we are proud to call her a notable woman of Cape Town!

Kerri Cross

Photo credit: Community Crime Prevention via Facebook

Kerri Cross is the co-founder and director of Community Crime Prevention (CCP) Hout Bay, a local, non-profit 24-hour response company. CCP was established by a group of concerned Hout Bay residents, (which, of course, included Kerri) who came together to prevent social crime and promote rapid incident response.

On a personal level, Kerri became involved with local security in the Hout Bay community after a traumatic, senseless crime event took place at her neighbour’s home and made her desperately want to improve Hout Bay residents’ sense of safety.

Today, Kerri and the team at CCP remain fiercely passionate about helping the community to stay safe and vigilant. In recent years, they have achieved everything from noticeable crime reduction rates to launching training and upskilling programmes and workshops that help people contribute to the mission of CCP, while also keeping the public informed and educated on community safety.

Kerri is also part of the pioneering CCP team behind the Buzzer app, a handy community safety app.

‘Boss lady’ Kerri is proof that a group of concerned residents can make a difference and improve their lives and those of the community if they’re willing to work together and take a stand.

We at DK Villas find Kerri’s work so brave and inspiring and we’re grateful for all that she and her team at CCP do for our local community.

Kim Krynauw

Another inspiring local lady is Kim Krynauw. In 2019, Kim, a former seal rescuer, took up Francois Hugo’s legacy at Seal Alert (a local centre that helped save and rehabilitate injured or dying seals) after founder Francois passed away and the centre was essentially left to ruin.

For a fresh start, the centre was renamed as the Hout Bay Seal Rescue Centre (HBSRC) and today, Kim and her team work around the clock at HBSRC to save as many seals as they can.

While other organisations may be quick to put the seals down, Kim and her HBSRC team do their best to give every seal they rescue a fighting chance. That’s also why Kim and the staff are on standby 24/7 to answer the call of any seals in distress.

Photo credit: Hout Bay Seal Rescue via Facebook

HBSRC has an amazing rehabilitation process, as well as a great water enclosure, where the seal yearlings can safely swim. The centre also has seals who swim freely in the ocean near the centre during the day but who, for safety, choose to sleep near the centre’s jetty at night.

We find Kim’s work with the famous local, protected Cape Fur seals so inspiring. We are proud to include her as a great, notable Cape Town woman.

Book A Stay at DK Villas this Women’s Month

DK Villas is a beautiful, carefully curated collection of Hout Bay-based accommodation properties. Our property collection consists of three unique accommodation rentals in our respective Harbour View, The Boardwalk and Riverview apartments.

Each of our fully furnished, self-catering apartments comes equipped with its own tasteful decor, all the necessary luxury amenities (to ensure our guests’ comfort) and secure parking.

Above all, though, our apartments are all secure and scenic. In fact, our apartments offer our guests the most stunning views of the local mountains and the Atlantic Ocean and of course, Hout Bay itself!

To book a stay with us this Women’s Month, please click on the relevant apartment ‘Book Now’ link on our website.