Our Partners

We currently work with seven partner organisations, supporting programmes at local level as well as helping implement longer-term policy changes.? Such partnerships enable South African women to:

Have access to appropriate counselling, advice and psycho-social support for those suffering from violence
Benefit from HIV/AIDS awareness advice and support
Receive practical vocational skills training
Generate an income through community-based projects
Move away from employment discrimination through the creation of trades unions
Better understand their bodies and their health, sexual and reproductive rights and needs.
Campaign for safe sex practices
Challenge – and change – attitudes towards multiple forms of violence against women

Raising awareness and campaigning to change attitudes is a core part of our partners work across South Africa.?? Many run programmes which not only work at community level to break the ‘wall of silence’ that surrounds violence against women, but lobby at national level to inform policy and advocate for women’s rights and needs to be heard – and systematically addressed – by the government.

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Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre?

Based in the Eastern Cape, the Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre gives practical counselling, advice, support and rehabilitation to women suffering from rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence and the associated impact of HIV/AIDS.? Over 7000 women benefited from the Centre’s support last year alone. With a number of offices in courts, the Centre also assists women with legal matters – such as seeking protection orders from abusive partners – and works closely with other rural community groups to promote women’s rights and address the specific concerns of women in the Province.??

The Centre’s Director, Dr Lesley Ann Foster is a member of the international task team of the Global Campaign for Adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).? A key part of Dr Foster’s work focuses on training decision-makers throughout the continent to lobby their respective governments to adopt – and ratify – CEDAW.

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Masonwabisane Women’s Support Centre

Located in Butterworth in rural Transkei, Eastern Cape Province, the Masonwabisane Women’s Support Centre provides legal and practical support and counselling to women on a range of issues, including violence against women, HIV/AIDS and child support.Their counselling service gives help to some 50 women each day.?? As part of South Africa’s ‘LoveLife’ campaign, the Centre promotes safe sex and HIV/AIDS awareness through strongly targeted messages to young people. In addition, they support immediate, community-based income generating projects such as a youth bakery and gardening scheme which support women in one of the poorest provinces to move out of poverty. And with a focus on the wider community, they run a number of campaigns to raise awareness of issues regarding both domestic violence and HIV/AIDS, while continuing to advocate for women’s rights and freedoms and lobby local government decision makers to address women’s specific concerns.

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Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women

The Western Cape Network on Violence Against Women is a 250-strong membership organisation coordinated and supported by a central secretariat. Individual member organisations from remote rural areas meet to share information – and address issues regarding the multiple forms of violence against South African women. Each organisation’s capabilities are supported and enhanced by training workshops and coordinated lobbying initiatives, while the Network’s central structure provides a key focal point for providing information to the media, the general public and the government.? In addition, the Western Cape Network hosts the Intersect Coalition – a body responsible both for researching causal links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS, and developing effective strategies to deal with these.

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Gender Advocacy Programme

Two hours northwest of Cape Town, in the isolated Saldanah Bay Municipality, the Gender Advocacy Programme is pioneering an innovative approach to the prevention of domestic violence.? Working with all members of the community, from religious groups, neighbourhood watch and the police, to schools, health care workers and local government officials, the Domestic Violence Task Force helps raise awareness of – and change attitudes towards – violence against women.? In addition, they act as advocates for the many marginalised women in the community, lobbying government to ensure that their needs and concerns are appropriately addressed and acted upon.

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Rape Crisis Cape Town

While both the South African and international media focus on the more sensational of the country’s rape cases, the reality for the majority of South African women is that rape is widespread and occurs all too often – some 147 women are raped somewhere in the country each day.

With offices serving 3 distinct and separate urban Cape Town communities, Rape Crisis provides counselling and practical support for women who have been raped.?? Crisis staff train volunteers to act as public educators within their communities and to provide support and counselling to rape victims. RCCT also work closely with local police under the ‘adopt a police station’ scheme in which volunteers befriend a station and build long-term understanding, information sharing and improved responses to cases of abuse with station staff. They have also established a number of income generating projects for women who contract HIV as a result of rape; allowing women to become self sufficient and able to provide for their own medical and healthcare needs.? Rape Crisis Cape Town’s powerful and successful lobbying and advocacy work on behalf of women has resulted in the government’s new Victims Charter and the on-going drafting of a new Sexual Offences Bill.

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New Women’s Movement

An active membership organisation of some 2,000 of the poorest women in the Western Cape, the New Women’s Movement has 12 branches throughout the Province allowing women to meet and identify common needs.? By joining forces as a strong and eloquent lobbying group, the Movement enables women’s voices and concerns to be heard – and addressed.? Since their participation in the national Child Support Grant campaign, the government has slightly increased the monthly grant and raised the eligibility for child support from children aged 0-7, to those aged 0-14.? Their current campaign focuses on anti-poverty, highlighting bread prices and calling on the government to introduce subsidies on basic commodities.??? The organisation’s Young Women’s Chapter provides vital education and awareness-training to young women and girls on issues concerning domestic violence, health, HIV/AIDS and basic human and civil rights, as well as supporting their development of vocational skills.

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Women on Farms Project

The Women on Farms Project supports coloured and Xhosa women working in the Stellenbosch vineyards and fruit farms, helping them develop strong, empowered communities who can represent their specific needs and concerns as agricultural workers.??? Women workers lobby farm owners and corporate buyers to address key issues such as lack of access to health care for farming communities; worker’s rights; equal pay; occupational health and safety, as well as highlighting individual cases of domestic violence.?? At national, and international level, the Women on Farms Project lobbies to raise awareness of how unequal trade impacts in a real and damaging way on the rights of women working in South Africa’s agricultural sector.

With support from the Project, some 2,500 women farm workers have joined together to form a trades union – Sikhula Sonke (We Grow Together) – to advocate for their human and employment rights.?? In addition, the Project runs a Women’s Health Programme giving women in farming communities with little access to health facilities or information knowledge about their bodies and sexual and reproductive health rights through training two local resource teams for each farm in rights awareness and basic health issues.

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