about

Antonia Squara also known as Toni, is the author and publisher of Toni Was Here which is her own experience of surviving an attempted murder committed by her intimate partner.

Femicide is something which is unfortunately all too common among women and girls around the world.

Toni aims to tell her story, and encourage others to tell theirs. Together we can make change.

Toni Was Here

Story of My Life

1 1988: Born in Standerton

Antonia (Toni) Squara was born on December 2nd 1988 at Standerton Provincial Government Hospital in Mpumalanga, South Africa, and grew up in Benoni in the City of Ekurhuleni..

2 Education

Having matriculated from Benoni High School in 2006, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2009 and went on to complete her honours degree in Psychology in 2010. She met the man that would change her world while studying psychology at the University of Pretoria, a cruel irony considering the man he would turn out to be..

3 Profession

After graduating from university, she went into the field of market research. Even though market research was only a temporary job until she could finish her master’s degree in psychology, she has been in the industry for over 12 years.

4 The Assault

In 2013, when she was 24 years old, her boyfriend brutally assaulted her and attempted to end her life.

Toni Squara about — **Antonia Squara** survivor and activist against Gender Based Violence

5 Writing Her story

She wrote most of the content in this novel in the summer of 2016, without an intention to ever share the words with others. It was a way to face the reality which never left since she was assaulted. It was more a form of introspection, than it was a literary endeavour

6 Help Toni change the world

Her dream is to change the world and make fewer people resonate with her story in the future. The plague of Gender-Based-Violence is a tricky riddle to solve, changing laws is one thing, it is quite another to change opinions and behaviour.

Toni’s donation wish list – what will happen with your donation?

Raise awareness on the issue of GBV

Host campaigns, events, and talks to raise awareness (venue hire, catering, audio and visual equipment).

Marketing efforts (pamphlets, posters, brochures, billboards, social media, signage for physical space).

Make the book accessible

Translate the book into different languages so that it is accessible to as many people as need to hear my story. I plan to start with an Afrikaans, isiZulu and isiXhosa (translations cost about R4-R5 per word).

Conversion of the book into Audio-book format.

What I want to do for young women

Empower young girls to escape potential harm in the future

Self-defense courses for girls and women

My experience learning self-defense was such an eye opener. Girls should be encouraged to take on sport like karate and krav maga – they are the ones who will actually need to use these skills in a real-life situation, and yet they are discouraged from pursuing these activities. I would like to have a workshop with girls and women about self-defense, where to find help in their communities, and open the door for them to have access to services and knowledge that may save their lives in the future.

What I want to do with my skillset

My profession is as a market researcher which includes social and political work Research into GBV is desperately lacking in South Africa. We need more data to make informed decisions about what needs to change, whether it is in policy or social opinion. I would like to see more research on the topic, if we don’t understand the problem, we cannot fix it.