In stature, the Rev. Musawenkosi Nyanawesizwe Daba is built like a prize fighter.

And as Associate Priest-in-Charge of the Parish of Pembroke with his headquarters at St. Monica's Church, Musa Daba, is very much a part of the neighbourhood's fight for survival. Three of the Island's recent shooting victims once attended his church.

Located on 42nd Street, the Police mobile command station has become a part of the community's landscape, as it morphs the religious into the secular, an ominous reminder that all is not well in the area. This is a battle zone, but conflict is not exactly something with which this gentle giant of the cloth is unfamiliar.

Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the 36-year-old clergyman still has recollections of his own personal conflicts. Separation, his parents' divorce. He saw his father, who was also a priest, being escorted from prison in handcuffs to conduct his mother's funeral. His crime: Protesting the Apartheid's regime's "banning orders".

As a child, Rev. Daba sometimes served tea to members of the banned ANC (African National Congress). They came to his house to commiserate with his father during his service as their counsel. Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered relief from the dreaded Special Branch when he summoned Rev. Daba's father to the white parish of Cape Town – a subtle means of offering protection.

The third of four children and a PK (pastor's kid), church was an ever-present feature of the young man's life ("I have spent enough time in the church to last two lifetimes!"), as an altar boy and server.

But at the age of 18 his parents divorced and the ensuing difficulties brought God into his life. His calling to serve came during his second year at university when he was doing a degree in Public Administration.

He was a youth worker in Cape Town, where he met his wife, Levidia (they have a daughter, Jessie), after which he began his theological studies at George Whitfield College and eventually became a curate in Port Elizabeth and commenced his formal ministry in the Anglican Church. His last parish was Christ Church, Craddock, the same location where his father began his curacy.

Looking to broaden his scope, it was in August, 2007 that he responded to an advertisement for an associate priest in the parish of Pembroke, Wales, and somehow ended up in Pembroke, Bermuda.

St. Monica's building is structurally no different from the days when Lay Reader Carl Wade held sway in the small church, conducting Evensong during an era when there wasn't a welcome mat spread in the Anglican Diocese for all parishioners. Wade also ministered to a packed church via radio on Sunday nights.

Today, attendance ranges between 45 and 75 and a good Sunday would see some 100 worshippers. He is encouraged by the younger families that are showing up for worship. And although he is based at St. Monica's he also takes services at St. John's, the "Cathedral" of Pembroke.

Rev. Daba regards himself as a colleague and friend of Rev. Nicholas Dill, the Priest-in-Charge of the Parish of Pembroke. Together, their pledge is to make the church meaningful to the people.

His modest office at St. Monica's is thousands of miles from South Africa and he tactfully avoids being drawn into offering opinions on a country where he regards himself as a guest. But he clearly sees a difference in the struggles in Bermuda and those that exist in South Africa.

"In the 1980s, in South Africa it was the people against the State. Here, although segregation ended 48 years ago there are still people suffering, living in fear and there's a division of economics, class and black and white."

He expressed sadness to see how some people live, on an island blessed with such affluence. During his walks to Parkside and St. Augustine Hill he saw elements of poverty not dissimilar to the Townships in South Africa, a stark difference from the Bermuda he came to a few years ago.

"At that time, my wife could walk through Hamilton on Harbour Nights with a Louis Vuitton bag and no one would bother her. Try doing that in Johannesburg! We used to marvel at newspaper accounts of a stolen laptop, or a wallet and wonder why it was newsworthy when at home even murders didn't make the newspapers, unless the victim was prominent."

The events of the past months have clearly shocked him, especially since he knew three of the gunshot victims.

"Right now the road outside the church is deserted. It used to be a beehive of activity. Now people are scared. This is not the Bermuda I knew."

He sees no real cure for black-on-black violence. In his view this not a struggle of ideologies, or freedom, and whereas in South Africa there was a struggle for power, here young blacks seem to be caught up in the American influence where they glamourise the gang mentality.

"I have gone past this black-on-black thing. It would be just as wrong if boys had gone into Tucker's Town to kill people. Guns, drugs and daily violence – this is genocide."

It is inconceivable to him that someone from Hamilton can't go to Southampton, or a Somerset person can't travel through Parkside without fear.

"It's crazy," he says. "There are Bermudians who fought against the indignities of the past to open the gates for these guys to go through and now they are spitting in their faces!"

A born and bred "Xhosa Man" Rev. Daba reveres former South African President Nelson Mandela and others who struggled for human rights, including his father, but for whom he would not be where he is today – with a good education and two degrees.

"In Bermuda many have paved the way to open doors for everybody on this Island, regardless of race, therefore there is no excuse for young people to behave like this," he says.

He stresses that he does not have an opinion how things should be done in Bermuda and that he does not speak for the Anglican Church.

But his personal feeling is that we should get to the children and show them that there are consequences for bad behaviour. Children should be taught the value of family, where the father and mother provide the structure. He bemoans the fact that children are having children and materialism is so rife that children have BlackBerrys, designer jeans, iPods – and no job!

He is not unmindful of those who prey on young children and force them to be mules and beasts of burden. This is an area where he feels the right steps must be taken by government accompanied by a stricter meting out of justice for those who flout the law.

"The tragedy is that the family structure is totally gone. People need to know that values are learned at home and all the church and schools can do is reinforce those values."

If he had to advise parents he would tell them to sit down and talk to their children in a way that the world cannot do. Men need to know that they don't become fathers simply by helping to give birth.

One of his contributions towards the solution comes this Ash Wednesday when he plans to make a pilgrimage to West Pembroke, Dellwood, Berkeley Institute and Victor Scott schools to take the services. "They used to all come to the church in Pembroke, but this is taking the church to them," he said.

At the risk of sounding naïve he says he wants to talk to young people about the value of what God has made. That they should not give away their bodies to be used and destroyed; that they are worth more than the designer jeans and the iPods.

"This may sound like pie in the sky, but we are in a battle for the survival of our community and our families," he says.

The best that he sees that he and his fellow clergy can do is pray hard for the families and the young people and be available to those in need; this they are already doing ...

"But at the end of the day where the rubber meets the road is between the mother, the father and the child."

Rev. Daba presides over a church with a history that dates back more than a hundred years. The green structure stands as a beacon of hope in a community that seems to have almost lost hope. But the optimism of Rev. Daba and his community's future is boldly printed on the church's mailbox: "Leave your prayers here."