Summit 2019: Una Zomba Lobatse Town Council

The council’s adopted a P.E.P approach to combat Gender Based Violence. The P.E.P approach stands for:

• Prevention by means of raising awareness and free contraception to public areas.
• Empowerment through psycho social support and a financial project and
• Protection by referral of survivors to appropriate shelters and safe environments and through strengthens stakeholder collaborations.

The council’s main objectives were to raise awareness, increase knowledge and understanding on Gender based violence. They also sought to discuss strategies and support mechanism to reduce and respond to incidents of gender-based violence. The council moreover wanted to commemorate the achievements, efforts and struggles of women towards the entire development process, to provide psycho social support and link survivors with financial institutions and government funding.

Activities conducted include commemoration of the 16 Days against GBV and Women’s Day. An awareness support programme workshop was also conducted to raise awareness on Gender Based Violence.

The council’s partners included: Gender links, Botswana Police services, Zodiac Collbo girls, Lobatse Tebelopele Centre, BOCCAIP, Ward Development Committees and Botswana Association for psycho social rehabilitation.

The beneficiaries of the project were 227 in total,166 of them were women and 61 were men. The project’s indirect beneficiaries were 21 women only.

The council monitored the impact of the project by holding monthly feedback sessions, hosting committee and Kgotla meetings to get reviews. Progress reports were given to management committees.

Evaluation of the project was goal based. The council identified target groups and created subcommittees within the bigger communities to drive different objectives and carryout activities.

The council monitored the progress of support groups by recording the number of survivors attending individual counselling sessions and witting a summary report of each survivor meeting.

The council’s efforts yielded the following outcomes:

• The establishment of a support group with 21 survivors of gender-based violence.
• Significant changes in gender attitude at individual and community level.
• Increase in the number of attendees at events.
• Increase in the number people who like the council’s Facebook page
• A workshop for committee members to gain skills on how to sensitize the community on gender-based violence issues.

One of the challenges observed was that changing people’s mindsets towards GBV is hard, people often change their attitude about GBV based on the behaviour of the GBV victims. The council has learned that it should engage different stakeholders to intensify awareness of GBV issues and that it needs to strengthen its monitoring and evaluation.

The council has the full support and guidance of the survivors of GBV and has been able to secure funds for projects and liaise with other stakeholders. The council believes that ensure sustainability of projects, there should be continuous mainstreaming of gender in government programs such as poverty eradication and economic empowerment programs.

The council plans to provide a fully functioning support group and intensify community sensitization.