The 1 000 Women Trust celebrated two decades of dedication to empowering women in smart casual fashion while paying tribute to its founders, support network and empowering initiatives that have saved victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
This event hailed phenomenal female figures such as the 1 000 Women Trust’s founders, Wendy Ackerman and Tina Thiart, in addition to the keynote speaker, Prof Thuli Madonsela at the Pick n Pay business park in Kenilworth on Thursday.
Thiart, a women’s rights activist and non-profit fundraising specialist, is said to have laboured tirelessly for more than 20 years as a catalyst for social change and gender equality in South Africa.
She was welcomed to the catwalk and started by telling the tale of how the trust was established: “In 2003, Wendy, myself and Raymond Ackerman (owner of the PnP group) were enjoying a golf day together at a club in which we touched on the issues faced by women in South Africa.”
Before long, their forces were joined together and grew to an impacting society of women, businesses “and a network of over 1 000 small community-based organisations,” Thiart proudly portrayed.
“1 000 Women with its network of trauma buddies and counsellors provides care, counselling and life-coaching skills to empower women in our communities.”
The Trust, additionally, aims at making resources available to provide access to skills and leadership capacity building. It also provides financial aid to women-led organisations that provide support to survivors of gender-based violence, Thiart said.
The initiative by the Trust is to cut across cultural, economic and class divides and to provide a platform for women and men to stand together and to speak out against domestic violence, abuse and rape in the community.
Prof Madonsela with her substantial influence and wisdom on matters relating to South African women’s wellness and financial empowerment also graced the audience of 200.
She observed that a vicious cycle is gripping South African women in that financial insecurity coincides with GBV.
“Although financial insecurity is not only suffered by women, they still get paid less. Certain lower-income jobs are most occupied by women which results in such jobs being feminised. Once that happens, these women tend to receive lower increases in their income. This is one of the reasons why women, although they’re mistreated, they stay in abusive relationships, because, where would they go otherwise?”
Madonsela illustrated how women’s financial empowerment is built on four levels, the first of which entails liberation.
“To those who wish to be stay-at-home moms, I say, ‘don’t’. You must have some stream of income, which has become much more achievable thanks to the digital era and increasing waves of entrepreneurial advancement.”
She quoted the infamous statistic of how more than 50% of marriages end in divorce and how women have often found themselves in situations where they are abandoned as the husband was unfaithful. This includes cases whereby women are widowed, only to find out their husbands never left behind a will.
“Women must leverage their own security. Invest as much as you can in yourself and diversifying your skills. Negotiate a shared ownership of the home in which you reside, so that if indeed there is no will, you would still have some ownership to land on your feet.”
It is important to have difficult conversations with spouses or partners as to what the plans will be, should one of them out-survive the other, she reiterated.
“There is an isiZulu proverb which says, Izandla ziyagezana, meaning: ‘one hand washes another’. In order to really make GBV and associated ills a thing of the past, it is important for society to raise other people.”
In her stature of influence, Wendy Ackerman too was praised at the event for her selfless input, investment and support to the 1 000 Women Trust.
She added to Thiart’s progress report depicting the leaps and bounds that have been accomplished thanks to so many partnerships across business sectors and even agriculture that reached out with innovative ideas on female empowerment.
“But what Tina hasn’t told you, was that, before we started with the awareness of what women faced, women were too scared to speak out about the violence they suffered. There were no resources for women to seek help and support. But now, it is more and more apparent that women no longer fear the fight out of their abusive lives.”
Wendy concluded that all abusive hardships and trauma would finally meet its end if we were to care for others like we do ourselves: “Love thy neighbour.”
As congratulations and trips down hardworking memory lanes were shared among attendees all around, the guests were all entertained with a fashion show strutting P n P Clothing’s new Spring/Summer line as coordinated by Hazel Pillay.
