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By Deliwe Ropafadzo Mhaka
Two South Africa-based organisations are seeking to form partnerships with local entities as a means to propel the achievement of healing, independence and self- reliance upon women who are victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
This was highlighted during a recent Indaba premised on the current 16 days of activism against GBV campaign at a local Harare hotel.
The Institute for Applied Alchemy (IAA) and Feel to Heal visited Zimbabwe with a thrust to encourage a change in perspective and problem-solving at an innate level, which inevitably catapults the individual into a global mind-set creating impact and effecting real change.
Both entities want GBV victims to heal and be linked with opportunities that can transform their lives, sustain their wellbeing and connectedness through empowerment.
“Victims of GBV must be empowered with entrepreneurial skills and form partnerships where they would exchange projects with other stakeholders from sectors such as tourism, health and insuranc,” IAA Executive Director Chantel Oppelt said.
As the nation commemorates the GBV campaign, IAA said they were targeting to empower young women which is in line with the South African National Development Plan 2030, Zimbabwe’s Vison 2030 aims and the the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) 2030.
Goal number 5 of the UNSDGs seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Oppelt said the organisations goals were to encourage shifting the GBV narrative from isolation to inclusive global partnerships so as to enable victims to speak out and get relief in the form of healing from what they were experiencing.
In this drive women and girls who are victims or potential victims of GBV would be empowered with skills that can sustain them without having to depend on their male counterparts.
After feeling the trauma of GBV, the women need to heal thus giving one the ability to find their authentic voice, through political education and unpacking inter-generational legacies of trauma.
Various stakeholders and civic organisations in the country were engaged to partner with the entities which has links with various corporates.
Feel to Heal executive director Shirneal Damons said together with the IAA they seek local partnerships with, “non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on women, entrepreneurship and leadership, as well as government forums that upskill and develop women as entrepreneurs in the industry and trade, agriculture, tourism, finance, insurance and health sectors”.
The organisations pursue seeing women and men working together within the communities and their goals will be supported by corporates such as Africa Grain and Seed.
Their projects aim to augment the work already being done in Zimbabwe’s communities and will be rolled out with a three-pronged approach focusing on GBV and Women in leadership.
The phases will include analysing their needs, fundraising of resources and finally implementation of partnerships formed, Oppelt said.
“After these partnerships are formed we will come back checking on whether women are now being able to make their own decisions to become great team players as well as leaders in their respective spheres of influence.”
IAA’s core work is creating a containment of safety to allow the possibility of co-creation towards safe, inclusive and sustainable societies.
It specialises in designing tailored interventions and programmes in the areas of leadership, strategic thinking and talent mobility. They offer leadership training, business model design and organizational development consulting which addresses challenges such as a lack of self-leadership, accountability among others.
All programmes offered by the Institute make use of alchemical processing which addresses the root cause of the challenge through scaffolding the wounding that inhibits the individual or organization from moving into optimisation.
The GBV campaign runs from 25 November to 10 December and this year’s global theme is dubbed, “Orange the World: End violence against women now!” The international campaign was started by the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991, and now runs annually. Nhau/Indaba
