SWATT-TEAM: sexual violence responders in Zimbabwe

Even in the midst of this globally challenging year, time flies, courage rises, hope does not lose its power, and the struggle continues! 

As I thought about this report and all that we continue to hope and struggle for, I was reminded of a blog I wrote a few years back and it just seemed appropriate: 

"Everything in me pulsed as I watched the scene from the documentary “Reparando” of a native woman named Tita looking out over La Limonada, the Guatemalan slum in which she lived and had started a school. The filmmaker asked Tita about what was apparently assaulting their senses from their vantage point. Her reply was this, “All I smell is hope, and I like it”.  

That, right there, is my “why”.  It is my life driving passion to smell out hope and to dance with it... barefoot wherever possible. It always has been.

Sound like fun? The interesting thing I am learning about pursing hope is that, contrary to the common ethereal perception of it, it is most often a jagged, relentless challenger, not satisfied to leave me shaped the ways I was at first, or last, encounter. It jolts me at every opportunity, never allowing for comfort in my own ability to formulate solution, never hosting my vanity stemmed from privilege or place or the relative means I have to walk wherever I may. Sometimes hope smells like African rain falling on dry ground and when it does, it washes me and I need it. But mostly it stirs up things that stink and when it does, it grows me and I’m learning to love it.

Hope is not about dominating or changing the face of me, of you, of a community, of a slum, of the state of a nation. Hope is about stirring the thrive of a nation, of a slum, of a community, of you and of me. The target of hope has never been to expose who we are or are not in relation to one another. Its target exposes our own “why’s” and challenges ownership of them for our futures and the futures of those we have the privilege to share in.

So, let it stir you. Let it stink. Let it challenge who or what your “why’s” are really about. All I smell in the process is hope, and I like it!"

As I read through this again, the "why" of myself and team, as we smell the hope in the Zimbabwean slum areas we love and are so grateful to walk and inspire hope in every day, became powerful again.  No doubt this year is hard!  Still in lockdown, we have supported as many families, including child-headed homes, as we have been able with food distributions.  We have seen domestic violence increase as the pressures of survival, in these and all of our families, has intensified greatly.  We have had to remind ourselves as community to watch out for and support each other when instinct pulls us in toward self-preservation.  We have had to choose, each day, to embrace the jagged edges of hope.  

May our journey with hope in difficult times stir yours as you take a moment to hear from us today.  As you see our masked faces in the photo's each of our Oasis programming team took of themselves, and as you read the few words written to you underneath those frontline faces, may hope rise for you too.  Let it stir, let it stink, let it challenge.....

A luta continua!

Alright, so we admit it, we spoke to soon!  We've gone from jokingly referring to how entering into 2020 had not quite met the Jetsonesque flying car expectation of a few decades back in our last report, to the world being locked down and quarantined due to a virus in a matter of months! 2020 is, apparently, 2020 after all! 

Our greatest hope is that you and those you love and get to do life with are well and safe. 

Here in Zimbabwe and in our communities that we love and are doing life with, we too are in indefinite lockdown.  The impact of this crisis’ impacts are disproportionately severe for so many here, however.  For our high-density communities that make up a majority of our work hubs, social distancing is a physical impossibility.  More than one family often occupies just a couple of rooms.  Homes and shelter structures do not have internal running water in these areas, and so community members must queue at communal water points each day.  The idea of using much of this water to consistently wash hands for 20 seconds is difficult one that does not bring comfort to the mother, father, daughter or son who have had to wake up at 4am and stand in line to get a precious bucket or two for the days’ needs.  Simply put, the luxury of protesting confinement, let alone being protected by it, does not live here. 

Most of our families in these areas, led by the women in and assisted by our SWATT TEAMs, survive by operating informal small businesses.  These businesses sustain families’ hand to mouth at the best of times, and as a majority are small sales-based they are unable to legally operate under lockdown with the exception of some regulated informal business types.  Within two weeks of lockdown, starvation, not the risk of COVID19 infection, became the more tangible threat.   

As a team, we are finding creative ways to connect online where we are having to miss each other in person.  Just hearing each other and community, using mobile networks to send out mindfulness tips and exercises, working with our network of teachers and community facilitators to call people in an effort to notice and be able to respond to assist the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.  The truth is, that we very often feel overwhelmed in the face of the need, but our shared motto these days is that we will "See today what our best opportunity is and focus our action, big or seemingly small, around that". Two of our primary goals in this are to identify where we see severe hunger, and to keep checking in on family and household relationships, including abusive situations and sexual gender-based violence incidents where we can to provide emergency assistance and referrals.  Just as in other nations, our  domestic and gender-based violence incidences have increased significantly under the COVID19 crisis, but in survival mode, these cases often get concealed deeply under what is considered to be the more urgent need.  We certainly know that the trauma and mindset work and training that we do under our SWATT TEAMs work is going to need to be ramped up as a part of trauma recovery following this pandemic.  

This GlobalGiving platform is amazing in the way that it allows us to connect, catch up and in ensuring that the money you give gets to us!  This month, we received a grant of US$1,000 from GlobalGiving itself to help us respond to the COVID19 crisis in any way we need to! This means that we have been able to purchase basic food packs for nearly 200 of our most vulnerable of vulnerable families and this week will be able to see at least some of the women we are missing so much (with social distancing of course!), and to have the brief opportunity to see their eyes, hear them, and remind them that they are seen and are not alone.   

Thank you again for your ongoing support. We hope that the realization that you are a part of impacting of all of the beautiful faces we will get to see over the next week will do your heart as much good as it does ours.  It truly is your individual support that is enabling us to keep doing what we do, at present.