Since the beginning of the 100-Day Challenges in April, the number of reported cases increased and peaked at 37%.  Although the team did not reach the set goal of increasing the reporting rate by 80%, the number of rape cases withdrawn, especially those which involve minors, juvenile minors and minor victims, decreased every month, with a reduction in withdrawn cases of over 70% 

Mobile office – a one-stop service in communities | Temporary shelters for victims/survivors | Awareness campaigns | Provision of counselling support | Stakeholder mobilisation | Outreach to victims/survivors

A sense of belonging and trust | Taking integrated services to the community | Doing builds Confidence | A tangible outcome as a goal | Community outreach and media | Civil Society participation requires activity funding | Keep team members involved | Collaboration enables “out-of-the-box” thinking | Quick start | Involve more stakeholders at the beginning

FOCUS AND GOAL

Focus

Rape is one of the biggest problems in South Africa, and it is estimated that a third of girls in the country will experience some form of sexual violence during their lifetime, often in the hands of someone they know. SAPS noted that most sexual offence victims are underage girls who often fall pregnant. These young girls are robbed of their childhood as they have to assume the role of a mother at such a young age. This also minimises their chances of having a good future, as they have to factor their children into their lives. Influencing attitudes and behaviours at an early age is key to preventing the spread of this epidemic.

 Awareness building is critical at schools and in the community at large. There’s a need to inspire and empower parents and community members to become ambassadors for zero tolerance of sexual offences against minors. Enlisting traditional leaders and social media influencers will be equally important to building awareness and inviting young people to change their attitudes and behaviours regarding enabling sexual predators.

Three key interventions of the GBVF National Strategic Plan – Pillar 3.  The national pillar team selected one area for the district to choose an Impact Challenge.

Results

The team was concerned about the under-reporting of sexual offences against minors in rural and urban areas. The strategy was to encourage victims to break the silence and report cases rather than seeking to resolve them within the family or through traditional structures, which tend toward seeking resolution in favour of the perpetrators.

100-Day Goal:

To Increase the number of reported cases in both rural (Lenyenye and Nkowankowa) and urban (Tzaneen) areas by 80%.

Since the beginning of the 100-Day Challenges in April, the number of reported cases increased and peaked at 37%.  Although the team did not reach the set goal of increasing the reporting rate by 80%, the number of rape cases withdrawn, especially those which involve minors, juvenile minors and minor victims, decreased every month, with a reduction in withdrawn cases at over 70% for the 100-days. 

 

Going forward: The team decided to extend their goals to reach all victims of crime and to continue with the outreach campaigns. The NGO social workers have also volunteered to provide counselling to victims after a crime has been reported and up until the case has been finalised.

Stakeholders

Experiments, Innovations and Actions

Mobile office - a one-stop service in communities

The team had a plan to identify a place where all stakeholders (police, Social Workers, Prosecutors, Pastors and Traditional Leaders) would provide information every Wednesday. Communities will be provided with information and assistance. Continuing with this strategy proved to be difficult due to poor transport infrastructure in the area. The team then decided to use the mobile office model, where all the different stakeholders visited different communities at different intervals to provide information and services to the communities.

Temporary shelters for victims/survivors

The team acknowledged that some victims/survivors might need temporary shelter after reporting a case. They approached churches to make their facilities available as temporary shelters until the Social Workers were involved.

Three houses were offered by good Samaritans to be used as shelters for the victims, 1 house in Sasekani and two houses in Nkowankowa.

Awareness
campaigns

The team ran 40 targeted campaigns focusing on children (schools) and the community (villages), including traditional leaders. Through these campaigns, communities were educated on sexual offences and were encouraged to break the silence and start reporting cases to the relevant authorities.

Provision of
counselling support

Identified survivors and victims were referred to the Social Workers for counselling support.

Three Social Workers in the team offered debriefing services to the team.

Stakeholder
mobilisation

The team was intentional in identifying and involving more stakeholders to maximise impact and increase reach. These stakeholders also donated shoes, sanitary pads and food parcels at Mapula Primary School.

Outreach to
victims/survivors

The team visited the Tzaneen Health Centre to encourage victims/survivors to report cases rather than trying only to resolve them within the family.

Insights gained and lessons learned

A sense of belonging and trust

In the beginning, there wasn’t a sense of belonging and information was not flowing as well as it should have. Weekly meetings created space for more engagements which resulted in team members sharing their experiences and engaging more openly on the best possible ways to improve the odds of achieving the set goal. Team members began to rely on each other and were willing to assist each other.

Taking integrated services to the community

When the team could not establish the One-stop-service centre, they decided to use the mobile office model, where all the different stakeholders (Prosecutor, SAPS, and Social Workers) visited different communities at different intervals to provide information and services to the communities. The team were able to adjust their plans quickly by coming up with an alternative solution.

 

Working in a coordinated manner as one team made team members appreciate each other’s role even better. They actually saw how their joint presence improved the lived experiences of the community members who received the services. When they served the community in this way, it brought a sense of accomplishment and meaning in the work that they do.

 

Recommendations:

  • Use mobile “offices” to serve remote rural areas, involving all the relevant service providers.
  • Matters which are usually handled by the heads of the families involved  should be referred to the police immediately.

Doing builds Confidence

As members engaged regularly, they began to grow in confidence. They communicated their viewpoints with confidence, without any fear of being judged. This is a complete departure from the initial workshops, where only a few members spoke.

A tangible outcome as a goal

To deliver a tangible outcome is not easy, and projects often shy away from putting impact outcomes as deliverables as the goal.

Most stakeholders found it difficult to set a clear goal with measurable impact and target. Creating a safe environment for engagements and using simple illustrations the Ambassador managed to lead engagements to a clearly defined goal, and because they defined the goal, it was owned by the team.  The goal proved to be a key energiser for the team’s activities

Recommendation:

Projects should have tangible goals to prevent the team from doing activities that may not contribute to real impact.

Community outreach and media

The team was encouraged by the good reception of information by the communities. Communities need the information to make the right decisions and act accordingly. 

Information sharing and awareness creation through awareness campaigns, media interviews and targeted outreaches, communities were sensitised about the importance of reporting these cases and ensuring that victims/survivors access the necessary support.  As a result of the campaigns and outreaches, the team began to see less withdrawals of rape cases.

Recommendations

  • Community awareness campaigns should share the right information to support the justice system.
  • Use more radio and television to share information.
  • Team members can run different campaigns simultaneously to reach more people.

Civil Society participation requires activity funding

Civil Society organisations have been very active in the process. Their involvement was, however, constrained by a lack of resources, more especially funds for transport to participate in the campaigns and outreach programmes.

Recommendation:

Allocate resources for projects where civil society organisations are involved.

Keep team members involved

To increase the odds of achieving the set goal, members need to be fully committed and focused on the work at hand. It is easy for members to lose momentum and focus when roles are not clearly defined and allocated.

Recommendation:

All team members should take responsibility for activities on the work plan.

Collaboration enables “out-of-the-box” thinking

The collaborative space enabled team members to rely on each other for ideas and to look further than what they know and what affects them. As the team was strategising on difficult issues, the different perspectives from stakeholders expanded the viewpoints and ushered in new ideas, which resulted in more innovations and creativity coming through.

Quick start

100-Day Challenges do not allocate too much time for planning, members have to get on their feet as soon as possible. This helps to avoid overplanning whilst at the same time forcing people to focus.  Iterative cycles of the plan, do, plan, do help the team to adjust the plans based on the impact of activities on the goal.

Recommendation:

Use iterative cycles of the plan and do to get going with activities quickly.

Involve more stakeholders at the beginning

The team realised along the journey that they needed more stakeholders such as the LGBTQIA+ community, men’s groups, and children’s organisations to work with them to have more reach and impact. These organisations came at the tail end of the journey, limiting their ability to reach out to victims and survivors.

Recommendation:

In selecting a 100-Day team, involve stakeholder groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community, men’s groups, and children’s organisations.

”SAPS took ownership of the process.”
“Passion and enthusiasm and the cooperation of colleagues was amazing”
"I think that this should be an all year long initiative not just a 100 days"
"The 100 day challenge has opened a lot of great opportunities for victims. The challenge has helped a lot of victims to heal and to be able to live past their traumatic experience."
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110

Survivors and victims directly impacted
in 100 days

19

Organisations
involved

To what extent would you recommend the 100-Day  Challenge experience?

To what extent did the 3 behaviours emerge during the 100-Day Challenge, compared to before?



"The experience was exhilarating, innovative and inspiring to all to give back to the community in any manner possible"


The 100-Days

01 April - 09 July
2022


"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step yes we might agree to disagree but we put in the effort and saw good progress"


Unsung Heroes

People not part of the 100-day team but without whom the results would not be possible:

Octavia Khoza, 100-Day Challenge Ambassador

Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.