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Johannesburg, South Africa (16 March 2026)<\/em> – Long before INpowered trained thousands of women and girls to defend themselves, the story began with a chance meeting in London. It was 1990 when Mark Grobbelaar crossed paths with Alison Botha while travelling. At the time, it was simply one of those fleeting encounters life sometimes offers. The two eventually went their separate ways, losing contact in an era before social media and search engines made reconnecting easy.<\/p>\n Years later, Mark would read Alison\u2019s name again, this time under circumstances that would forever change the direction of his life.<\/p>\n On the 18th of December 1994, Alison was abducted<\/a>, brutally assaulted and left for dead in one of the most horrifying attacks the country had ever seen. Against all odds, she survived. When Mark later read about what had happened in a magazine, he was stunned. The two eventually reconnected in April 2000, and hearing her recount the ordeal in detail stirred something profound in him.<\/p>\n A fifth-dan karate practitioner, Mark had spent years studying self-defence but Alison\u2019s experience reframed everything he thought he knew about the subject.<\/p>\n \u201cI realised that I had to share what I had known for so long with the world,\u201d Mark explains. \u201cKnowing something, having that knowledge, could potentially save someone\u2019s life. When Alison got up and decided to live… the course of my life changed.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n He went on to write his thesis titled Girl Power \u2013 Self Defence for Women<\/strong>, which would eventually become the foundation for what is today known as INpowered.<\/p>\n When Alison read the thesis, she shared a sentence that has echoed through the programme ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cHad I known this, my ordeal would never have happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That moment turned a personal passion into a mission. In 2012, Mark left corporate life behind and committed himself fully to empowering women with practical self-protection skills through Woman INpowered (WIP). Over time, the initiative expanded, eventually bringing men into the conversation through Guy Responsibly INpowered (GRIP), creating the broader INpowered programme that now works with communities across South Africa and beyond.<\/p>\n Since its launch, the programme has reached more than 16,000 women and girls, teaching them to recognise danger, defuse situations where possible, and respond when necessary. And for Mark, the impact of that knowledge has already proven life-changing.<\/p>\n \u201cMiss SA and Miss Universe 2017 Demi-Leigh Tebow (nee Nel-Peters) credits the INpowered program for being alive after being in an attempted hijacking just after she was crowned Miss SA,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is stories like these that continue to fuel the work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A post shared by INpowered (@woman_inpowered)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n