Sunninghill bag drive is a success
FOURWAYS – A Women's Day drive was a success, and is now prompting a year-round contribution to assisting as many displaced women in the province as possible.
A non-profit organisation’s initiative which was launched in Women’s Month to assist and uplift victims of gender-based violence has collected 2 000 handbags filled with essential items.
The Safer Women Drive is a new initiative launched by Hope SA Foundation which called for donations including an inspiring hand-written note, pepper spray, sanitary pads, toiletries, books and chocolate to be put in handbags and donated to women who are victims of gender-based violence.
While the foundation has had similar but smaller projects catered to women before, the newly-formed Safer Women Drive hosted a high tea to hand out more than 2 000 handbags filled with items on Women’s Day.
Project manager of HopeSA, Namritha Sivsanker was overwhelmed at the response at which donations came through for the drive and the number of hampers that were handed out to the women.
“It was amazing to see how much we could do for these women. We were able to hand out the hampers and give hot chocolate and pastries to uplift the ladies who came,” she said.
HopeSA has done work in the Fourways community and had called out to them and the Sunninghill community to assist with the donations of feminine sanitary products for the high tea.
Sivsanker said that HopeSA aims to make the safety of women a higher priority throughout all months of the year.
“Everyone can help. Men – including young boys – need to be made aware that it is not acceptable to disrespect women, their wives or mothers. It is imperative that more men are enlisted to join the crusade regarding the mistreatment of women. They need to be heard in decrying the current wave of abuse and violence against women,” she said.
“We will continue to grow the initiative to help stop GBV, abuse and rape. We’ve handed out 2 100 pastries, 1 500 hot chocolates, 20 boxes of naartjies, 300 #SaferWomen care packs and have been to 12 locations. We still have more places to go,” Sivsanker concluded.
