Empowerment

Narindra is 26 years old, married with two children. She is one of the beneficiaries of the project entrepreneurship led by Gender Links (GL) Madagascar in the rural council of Bongatsara, which is part of the GL centres of excellences since 2011.
After her marriage and the birth of her first child, Narindra’s life turned into a nightmare. Her husband began to drink every day and when they had disputes, he did not hesitate to use violence. There were even days when she did not dare leave the house because was ashamed to be seen by her neighbours. This situation lasted for years.

I attended the first workshop which was the “IÀ stories workshop and it took place in May 2014. When I attended the workshop I was not sure what to expect, however I felt that I owed it to myself to see it through. That workshop was very hard and very painful; it forced me to deal with a lot of issues that I had been dealing with for a very long time around the abuse by my husband. My husband was not always an abusive person, he used to be very supportive and also was good to my children and me. We have four kids together and we were very close.

I started the Bitou Joy Laundry with a group of other women, in fact let me tell you how this all began. I was married in 1999 my husband and I were happy in our marriage we even got blessed with children. However two years later things began to change. His behaviour changed and he started to become abusive towards me. I ignored it thinking that he was stressed at work as he was having problems. However that was just the start of the abuse, things became difficult. He would be abusive towards me even with the children around this took the form of beating me and swearing at me all the time. Then he demanded that I stay at home and look after the children and become a full time housewife. At that time I had a part time job at a local supermarket and it was nice. I enjoyed meeting other people that came into the supermarket, and also interacting with the customers. My husband became jealous and told me I was secretly meeting my lovers at the supermarket and he told me to stop working. That was difficult as I had no financial freedom, I had to rely on him for money for groceries and maintaining our family.

The most memorable experience with GL and Mossel Bay Council was getting ready for the entrepreneurship awards in 2013, having already started the business, Joana Baleng thought doing a business plan and the PowerPoint presentations would be an easy task. However as the days drew nearer cold feet began to overwhelm her years of sweat and hustling. The Gender Focal Person (GFP) in in her municipality was extremely helpful in calming her nerves. The support from GL Governance Manager Ntombi Mbadhlanyana was also incredible, encouragement was provided to Baleng. “I had low self-esteem after the childhood rape by my half-brother, the GL workshop was my first time talking of the rape and I was free emotionally which then opened up freedom in other areas of my life.À In the past Baleng would feel shame when there was talk about rape, she did not want to say anything. Baleng is a driver of change in that she managed to overcome the obstacles in her private life and took it to the community level.

Having been a victim of abuse for years, her first encounter with Gender Links was therapeutic. The reason was that she met women who had travelled a similar path to hers. She found herself in a group of women were not just accommodating but were ready to harmonise with the world and she felt like a new person.

She could not hold back her tears when she remembered her first interaction with Gender Links as she got a message from her councillor to go to the council and when she got there she found many women and although she did not know all of them, she knew a few. They were told to write their gender based violence stories and she found that very strange and she did not like the whole idea because she thought the people were going to laugh at their problems. She even lied that she did not know how to read and write so that she could sit with Ntolo and at least tell her alone and she wrote the story for her. She poured everything out to Ntolo and she felt so relieved after that session.

Mamofeng Lepheane was abused by her husband and had always seen herself as a victim until she joined the Gender Links training. When she first attended the training she did not know much about gender based violence and gender issues until she met with the Gender Links staff which gave her a better understanding of gender. Like other women in the village who were abused by their partners, she had always had a back seat as she had felt sorry for herself her whole life. She always thought that men were their decision makers. Lepheane first encountered Gender Links in 2014 during the ‘I’ story workshop which impacted her life in a very different way and changed the way she used to understand certain issues.

Rosa Pita Joaque was a happily married woman with six children.

In 1995 her husband told her he was going to Beira to look for better conditions for the family, but he never came back. After her husband’s disappearance, life got worse by the day, because she was under educated, jobless and had 6 children to care for. Without expecting it she was now the leader of the family. Being a mother without a husband is very difficult in her culture. Without a job or someone to count on and with society judging her, her life was a living nightmare. Despite all the negative things people told her, Rosa new that her kids needed her, so she started selling cakes and cool drinks to sustain her family.

I still remember vividly the first time I met Gender Links (GL). It was in 2013 and I was told by my councillor that GL wanted to meet with survivors of gender based violence (GBV) and knowing me, he asked me to go there and see if it was something that I would tolerate. I laughed because I wondered why he asked me to go in the first place if he was not sure about it, but I went and I never looked back from that day. I remember very well that we were about 20 women from different areas in the Mazenod Council board room and I must say I was shocked to see some of the women there whom I would never have thought would have experienced GBV in any form. We were asked to share our life experiences in writing and I do not know why I felt that way, but I was excited as if I was writing something very interesting. From that moment I felt strong as a woman and I actually believed that I could achieve anything as long as I set my mind to it.

My name is Malimakatso Tjamela from Ntsupe Community Council in the district of Qacha’s Nek and I first encountered GL in 2014 when they visited our council. That meeting was life changing as I was able to face my worst enemy; confronting what I had been through my whole life. After that meeting I felt like a whole new person and I wanted to help abused women. I wanted them to be more like me; I had a desire to help women and from that day I told myself that no women would go through what I went through.

My life has been a challenge as my husband left me in 1995 when he went away looking for a job and never came back and I had to take care of six children by myself. I had to find a way to survive and raise my children, who at that point depended on me alone.

I had always believed that my husband had reason to hurt me and sometimes I would even blame myself saying that if I did not do certain things he would not have done what he did to me. Then I had to admit that he was wrong and had no reason to hurt me whatsoever.