Mosaic's Women's Wellness Centre
country: South Africa
Sexual violence is rampant in South Africa en it is a threat to the status of women and girls. For one in every three women the first sexual experience is unvoluntary. Besides the physical and emotional problems that arise by forced sex, these women also are at great risk getting infected with HIV.
WPF cooperates with Mosaic, an organisation which has founded a health centre (Women's Wellness Centre) where women can get appropriate information, advice and resources to safeguard their sexual and reproductive health. Mosaic specialises in helping girls and women who have been the victims of violence, often sexual violence. The WWC centre is a flagship for other parts of South Africa.
Waiting rooms
Volunteers of Mosaic also give presentations of sexuality education in the waiting rooms of the health clinics in the townships (slums) in Cape Town. The volunteers also point out that violence and abuse are unacceptable.
Women's Wellness Centre
Women who want more information or need help will receive help or are being referred to for instance the Women's Wellness Centre in another part of town. In this free clinic they can get counseling or medical care and they can enrol in training sessions to (re)build a future for themselves.
Court Support Desk Project
Mosaic also initiated the Court Support Desk Project and assists abused applicants in the domestic violence sections of ten magistrates’ courts in Cape Town, Paarl and Wellington (two semi-rural towns). For this Mosaic developed a booklet for applying a so called Protection Order which forbids someone to appear in a certain area.
Protection Order
Mosaic's Protection Order Booklet contains detailed information written in simple language that explains all the requirements necessary to qualify for the Protection Order, all the differences in interpretation by the courts, the procedure that is followed with the application process, the procedure that takes place with the serving of the order and the final appearance in court to see if the magistrate will grant the Protection Order.
Second health centre
Mosaic wants to open a second crisis and health centre in order to improve access in the townships to sexual and reproductive health services, particularly for young people.
Together with Rifka Annisa and WCC Bengkulu, Mosaic is trying to identify ways of working with male perpetrators of violence to fight gender-based violence. studying how male perpetrators of violence can best be approached to fight gender-based violence. As well as providing their standard service, they will continue to develop this best practice in 2010.
Results 2009
In 2009, professionalism on the part of Mosaic increased through strengthening of the monitoring and evaluation system, including necessary staff trainings.
In view of the vast need of information on and provisions for SRHR in communities, Mosaic organised a growing number of workshops, which were attended by both men and women.
In 2009, the counselling toolkit for male perpetrators was piloted. The toolkit consists of a counselling manual and a training manual for social workers. The pilot results will be assessed early in 2010 after which the toolkit will be finalised.
For the sake of effective assistance to perpetrators of violence,
Mosaic also started awareness-raising workshops for community leaders. Collaborative links with men’s organisations are being extended.
Mosaic increasingly plays a role in the field of advocacy in relation to Gender-Based Violence and SRHR, at local, provincial and national level as well as internationally (among others UNGASS).
Lessons for the organisation
In 2009, the reorganisation that was started in 2008 resulted in further tuning and integrating care and activities at community level offered by Mosaic.
This concerns integration of legal aid and social and healthcare assistance. Also, decentralisation resulted in more active involvement in networks at community level and an improved system of referral to both the Mosaic SRHR clinic and to other organisations.
Thanks to the quality of its work, Mosaic is increasingly considered as a leading actor in the field of Gender-Based Violence and SRHR, both within and outside South Africa. The organisation increasing
acts as an active advocate at regional and international level. One side-effect is that this vastly increases the pressure of work and that more choices will have to be made in future.
Toolkit
In 2009, major progress has been made in developing the toolkit for tackling Gender-Based Violence, consisting of a counselling manual and a training manual. The toolkit was piloted in Indonesia and South Africa. Additional expertise in the field of counselling men was brought into action.
At the end of 2009, this intervention was nominated for the PSO Innovation Award 2010.
Partner consultations resulted in a ‘linking and learning’ learning process aimed at improving the quality of aid to male perpetrators within a strengthened organisation.
Lessons 2009
Developing and implementing an aid programme for male perpetrators by women’s organisations implies major organisational changes, which also has implications for WPF ’s work.
Plans 2010
Early in 2010, the pilot results will be assessed and incorporated in the Training and Counselling Manual as the last step towards the definitive counselling programme for male perpetrators. In 2010, a great effort will be made towards further distribution of the so-called. ‘Male Counselling Toolkit’, and improvement of the couple counselling interventions will be initiated.
