14 Mar 2021

 The 18-day Gender Based Violence campaign in Rakops led by Healthy Families Foundation is expected to make a radical transformation in the community.

Healthy Families Foundation director, Ms Ashley Thaba of Talking with the Thaba’s TV show, said the objective of the campaign was to address social ills such as gender based violence, substance abuse, fatherless children, high crime rate and poor education, among others.

The campaign, funded through a partnership with Healthy Families Foundation, Ministry of Gender Affairs, Nationality and Immigration and the Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane started March 8 and is expected to end March 25.

Ms Thaba explained that the aim was to fix the family unit as the foundation of a nation.

The campaign is expected to make a significant impact on behavioural change since the community and leadership acknowledged there were challenges and have assumed ownership.

Lead volunteer, Ms Naledi Motlogelwa stated that the impact of the campaign was yielding some positives since people were learning to trust and able to open up about their experiences.

Ms Motlogelwa said the intention was to break the culture of silence and allow people to share their deep hurts, stories on polygamy, witchcraft, abuse of young people, unfaithfulness and rape.

A local volunteer, Ms Nnyaladzi Madzikigwa indicated that the training revealed that the community was yearning to talk about gender based violence  issues and needed a platform to express themselves.

Ms Madzikigwa said the root cause of gender based violence   emanated from the belief that women should follow while men took the lead in all matters.

She said issues including cohabiting, infidelity and multiple sexual partners were causes of abuse, adding that older women, some above the age of 60, had come to accept abuse because they had suffered abuse from a young age.

“Women are aggrieved in their families, they appear to be happy and comfortable in the public eye while they are suffering behind closed doors,” she said.

Ms Madzikigwa said some resorted to alcohol abuse to avoid confronting their challenges, noting that some women complained that they were undermined

The campaign addressed issues ranging from financial problems, reiterating that a family was a small unit, which if reinforced strongly, it could lead to a stronger nation. Ends