KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has commended the installation of victim-friendly rooms at 28 police stations, boreholes and streetlights at a gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) hotspot in Nongoma.
The victim-friendly rooms were installed by lsibaya Casino, while Vodacom installed the boreholes and streetlights.
Dube-Ncube said at least 755 survivors of GBVF accessed services in government supported GBVF shelters, with 112 964 survivors receiving psychosocial support services from the Department of Social Development and their partners.
“A total of 3 540 victims of GBV and crime accessed Khuseleka/White Door houses and shelters. District focal points and stakeholders from 11 districts were trained as master trainers,” Dube-Ncube said.
The Premier said there are currently 74 functional ward-based rapid response teams integrated into war rooms.
The Premier emphasised that one of the best ways is to assist GBV survivors through economic empowerment, highlighting that 26 401 women were reached with economic empowerment programmes this year.
“Three hundred women in business have been supported with card machines by the Office of the Premier. A GBVF App with a panic button is being developed by the Moses Kotane Institute, with funds from lsibaya Casino.
“We are determined to ensure that women are continuously empowered and in this regard, through the Department of Social Development, SEDA [Small Enterprise Development Agency] and EDTEA [Economic Development, Tourism, and Environmental], we have trained over 500 women in business skills,” the Premier said.
She said most of these women were survivors of GBV and to this end, they have received start-up packs to set up and run their own businesses.
Forging partnerships for GBV response programmes
Meanwhile, the KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Premier has forged strategic partnerships for the Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) Response Programmes.
The office, as the coordinating office, is leading the implementation of the Provincial GBVF Strategic Implementation Plan, which was approved by the provincial Executive Council in 2022.
“These partners include the KZN Gaming Board, lsibaya Casino, United Nations Population Fund, AIDS Foundation of South Africa, TBHIV Care, Cloud Therapist, Vodacom, lmbumba Foundation, SAB, and Spar Group. This structure is responsible for addressing high profile cases and supporting District Rapid Response Teams,” Dube-Ncube said. – SAnews.gov.za
dandelion
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Pixie
Did you know that another country lies within the borders of South Africa? The Kingdom of Lesotho is a sovereign state that is located in the Drakensberg Mountain area. The mountainous country has been nicknamed “the Kingdom in the Sky” thanks to the magnificent scenery and landscapes!