Cape Town - A Manenberg community activist is working with Rape Crisis to offer free gender-based violence awareness workshops.
These were held yesterday at the Grassroots Educare Trust building in Athlone.
Hopeful Leaders Night School founder and community activist Yumna Alexander said that as a single mother of two, her life’s mission was to ensure others were spared the traumas and challenges she has had to face.
She became pregnant as a teenager and was a high school drop-out.
“I don’t want to be biased and just want women to be empowered, but right now that is my main focus. I feel we have been deprived for most of our ancient years - our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers - and I feel that if women know more, they’ll tolerate less,” said Alexander.
She approached facilitators at Rape Crisis last year and expressed the need for more community-based workshops aimed at empowering residents.
The first session of the GBV awareness workshop took place last week and would be conducted weekly.
Alexander said workshops were informative. However, there was a need to reach younger girls from about the age of 11 as they should be made aware of how to identify signs of danger and understand key concepts related to GBV. “Everyone in the workshop has spoken about so many things, things that I felt they needed to offload. They had a lot of ‘wow’ and ‘if only I knew’ moments.”
Participants were informed of the various channels through which psychosocial support such as counselling, trauma centres, special courts, pre-trial counselling could be attained and how to overcome barriers to accessing these services.
Alexander said many of these services were free and this information needed to be shared.
Identifying various forms of GBV, unpacking it and how to safely respond were discussed.
Many more workshops would take place next month, Alexander said. However, there had been challenges in accessing facilities to host these workshops and other community development workshops in Manenberg.
Rape Crisis training and development facilitator Tohira Jardien said the workshops aimed to empower the community by informing them of the services Rape Crisis had to offer.
“Our workshops look at pathways through the criminal justice system as well as sexual reproductive health rights, what they are and how to access them. We also impart the proper definitions of rape, sexual assault as well as harassment so that our participants leave with the proper understanding of the terms.”
Lunch and travelling costs are included. Email Alexander on [email protected] or message her via Facebook.
Cape Argus