Empowering women and equipping them with resources to cope in challenging times.
This was the focus of The Women’s Communicare Network’s (TWCN) first women’s workshop held at the Shawco Centre in Kensington on Thursday 3 March.
The non-profit organisation (NPO) aims to assist and support vulnerable children at risk between the ages of six and 15 years from the community.
Aurelia Kumar, TWCN Community Development Agent (CDA) and administrator, says CDA’s who are employed by the provincial department of social development visit schools in the area and, with the help of the school principals they identify learners at risk who then become part of their programme.
“We do development programmes with them, life skill programmes, excursions and school holiday programmes. Our goal is to L.E.A.R.N: Love, show Empathy, Awareness, Respect and Non-violence. We want to develop them in these aspects so they can become sound citizens of the community and country.”
Kumar says while their focus is on children, they have found that women in the community are often vulnerable and face challenges like trauma and abuse. She says the workshop was to create awareness and inform women that there is help available.
“Women are very vulnerable as well and there is so much gender-based violence (GBV) and our workshop programme is focussed on GBV, abuse, trauma, loss of finance, loss of jobs and to see where their need lies so that we can escalate them to our social workers that are available at Shawco.”
At the workshop women were addressed by various speakers and encouraged to seek help.
Palesa Magugu, social worker based at Shawco, says: “The challenges I’ve picked up on among a lot of the children at risk is, significantly, parenting. The children in the community need positive parenting. Their parents are wounded, they have undealt trauma that they are passing on to the children. Initially I was working with children and then I realised the intervention method I was giving children, yes it worked, but it was not sustainable.”
Magugu says by working with the parents she was able to see positive change in the child.
“This workshop is to uplift those mothers and those women for the sake of their children. Women in this community don’t have access to these resources, they need the empowerment. So many women are finding themselves in situations and patterns are being repeated of bad parenting, of children who are broken and it’s passed down from generation to generation.”
Angeline Ah-sing, former police officer now motivational speaker, encouraged women to not suffer in silence and to seek help. Ah-sing women often stay in abusive relationships because they believe there is no help available.
“I like to tell people to just breathe. Stop, think and chose what you’re going to do. Share your burden with someone. A burden shared is a burden lighter.”
Ashwin Jansen, treasurer and board member, says as an NPO they often struggle with financial burdens and appeals for donations in cash or kind.
“The challenges that we have is financial issues. We don’t have enough finances to meet the need of the learners that are entrusted to us. We also need volunteers; we will accept any help that is out there.”
He says they have seen a decline in the number of children registered on their programme due to the Covid-19 pandemic and encourages schools in the area to reach out to them.
“We are allowed to accommodate 25 children daily for aftercare and homework sessions. They get a small meal, but we are only getting on average of about 6-7 because we don’t have that presence at schools.”
- To contact the organisation call 021 593 0794 or email womenscommunicarenetwork@gmail.com
