My Journey of TEARS

The story of Mara Glennie, founder of TEARS

He wrapped a tie around her neck and pulled it tight. It was a brutal mockery of the marriage vow — “to have and to hold” — and a stark symbol of his compulsive need to remind her who was in charge.

But even as she struggled to breathe, the torture, for Mara Glennie, had only just begun.

He pushed her over to a bowl of water, and held her head down. He had learned the method in the military, as a means of extracting information from uncooperative captives.

For almost 20 years, she had been his wife, and now, she felt like his prisoner too. But on that day, Mara made the decision that would forever change her life

Black-eyed and bruised, she limped into the police station to lay a charge against her husband. It was six o’clock on a Friday night.

The officer behind the desk looked at her and listened to her story of violence and abuse. Then he told her to come back on Monday morning, in the hope that one of his colleagues might be able to assist. Mara just stood there, the tears flowing.

“I felt hopeless and filled with despair,” she recalls. “I really needed someone to take me in their arms and tell me I’d be okay.”

Mara, a successful entrepreneur and business-owner, had never felt as lonely as she did at that moment. And yet, she knew she wasn’t alone.

Thousands of women and young girls fall victim to genderbased violence in South Africa every year, and our national femicide rate, according to the World Health Organisation, is five times higher than the global average.

As it turned out, Mara did not go back to the police station that Monday morning. Instead, because she had nobody she could turn to for help, she vowed to find a way to be of help to others. And that’s how TEARS was born.

From her dining-room table, with a phone in her hand and a blank spreadsheet in front of her, Mara began collating and coordinating a database of national organisations that were committed to fighting genderbased violence, and providing support and resources to its victims.

In 2012, working with a small team of volunteers, and using an acronym that came to her in a dream, she founded TEARS — Transforming Education About Rape & Sexual abuse — a non-profit foundation dedicated to “bringing hope and healing” to young girls and women in their hour of greatest need.

Funded by grants and donations, TEARS provides a free 24-hour SMS helpline service, on *134*7355#, to anyone who has access to a cellphone.

The service connects victims to a network of nationwide facilities that offer counselling, medical attention, support groups, volunteering opportunities, and access to emergency shelters.

But more than anything else, what TEARS offers is empathy, understanding, compassion, and practical advice and insight, born from painful experience. For Mara, the memories of her abusive relationship are still raw.

She credits her deeply-held faith for her survival — “against all odds”, as she puts it — as well as for the sense of mission that drives and energises her, even in the face of physical and emotional cruelty that has lost none of its power to shock even the most hardened members of her team.

“People often say to me, Mara, how can you carry on doing such a horrible job?” she says. “But I don’t look at it that way. I see it as an opportunity, every single day, to help people, to save their lives, to change their lives, to make a difference. It’s my life’s work, and I find it extremely rewarding.”

Already, TEARS has helped more than half-a-million victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse across South Africa, and has reached some 44-million people through its public service education campaigns and initiatives.

As testimony to its power to spread hope and healing, TEARS has won several awards, including an MTN Award for Social Change, a Gold Stevie Award for Women in Business, and a Silver Award for Service Excellence in the Social Transformation and Social Development category of the Gauteng Premier’s Service Excellence Awards.

But for Mara, the greatest reward is simply knowing that young girls and women in South Africa have someone to turn to, someone to talk to, someone to share the pain and lead the way towards healing, in their time of tears.

*For more information on TEARS please visit https://www.tears.co.za. The 24-hour free TEARS SMS helpline is accessible from any cellphone, on *134*7355#.