By Asha Emmerson | CEO, Country Director & HDP Expert
The confidence after four monthly training sessions with close to 100 women plus team members each, is growing, and the colours of our community champions are showing. These amaizing women have begun to notice and identify incidence of abuse within their communities and actively engage around how to effectively address them. And in our last session we were all profoundly impacted as we heard firsthand of how the trauma and addressing deep cycles of poverty training and techniques we have been building on habitualising saved a life.
Conversations about the SWATT TEAMs community movement has stirred other community stakeholders, including two police units, and planning around providing Victim Friendly Unit officers with trauma and Hidden Dynamics of Poverty (HDP) training is currently under way with both units. One of our key stakeholders leading in medical treatment for rape survivors will be attending our training and strategy sessions, learning with us, providing specific training on steps to take when assisting rape survivors to receive care within the critical 72 hour window, and responding to and dialoguing around the SWATT TEAM champions questions as they forge this path and learn to navigate the needs of survivors within their communities. Everyone is very excited about a self defense session we have planned.
With your generous support, and through the incredibly genrous support of the Canadian Embassy in Zimbabwe - although not via this platform - we are half way to our finacial goal toward training 1000 SWATT TEAM members, establishing and capacitating safe houses, assisting survivors to medical, legal and other supportive service appointments, and in supporting education/skills development for young women! Over the next few months, we will be training an additonal 200 SWATT TEAM champions, increasing our engagment of men in addressing this issue, establishing 2 of our overall targeted community safe spots, as well as increasing our support of survivors in accessing medical care and other vital important follow up through your support. This includes support through specific savings pots SWATT TEAM members have established and are contributing into themselves to assist with survivor transportation for these services.
Awareness is changing, mindsets are changing, responsibility toward the future we want for our mothers, sisters, nieces, daughters, granddaughters is growing, not through a programme, but through a community movement that you are a part of.
Please consider continuing to give, sharing this work and our Global Giving link with your family members, your colleauges, your social and church groups. The more we are able to raise toward our goal of US$50,000, the more lives you and us are able to impact generationally. Thank you again for being apart of this priviledged journey.
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