Celebrating the elderly women of Diepkloof
The country continues to mark Women’s Month, community based NGO Kaboentle Women’s Development Project.
As the country continues to mark Women’s Month, community based NGO Kaboentle Women’s Development Project held a special day for the elderly to celebrate Women’s Day in a glamour event held at the Diepkloof Hall on Wednesday.
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The event in collaboration with the SAPS, Sonke Gender Justice, Masiphephe Network and Lifeline not only sought to celebrate women but was to raise awareness and empower the elderly with information on services at their disposal.
Founder of Kaboentle project, Monica Moagi said the vision of the event was to push the agenda amid rising figures of GBV against elderly persons.
“The purpose of today’s event is to make our elderly persons aware of those issues and relevant places where they can access help at any given point because their issues differ in severity.
“This is just an awareness to educate and empower them with a programme dedicated to addressing some of the pressing issues that they are faced with,” she said.
Moagi said there was a need for communities to work together in ensuring that vulnerable groups such as the elderly are not left behind in conversations and be neglected as it currently stands.
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“This area of Diepkloof is one of the communities battling the predominance of GBV and today we are saying GBV must end.
It should be a 365/7 days a week agenda. We are saying women’s issues should not only be one month in a year.
These are the backbones of society and yet we continue to hear horrific stories of rape and attacks on elderly persons. We need to have continuous dialogues, where even the youth is part of the discussions.
“We need to guide them and pass this baton to them. For us to have an impact we need to start at the core, and in that we will better know how to break those cycles,” Moagi explained.
She further called for more visible and confidential visiting centres to be established in the police stations where women are able to report cases in safe environments that are comfortable.
Namhle Sonie, of Sonke Gender Justice and Masiphephe Netowrk co-partner for the event, said recent events against elderly persons were shocking.
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“As we mark this momentous month in the everyday struggles of women, it’s important that we spearhead and drive the conversation through such events because we feel they are often overwhelmed and overburdened.
These are vulnerable people who we often hear horrific stories and many of them don’t know where to go to report. Today we aim to empower them with information about such services.
“Even within the local police station, there is a Gogo desk where their grievances are specifically dealt with,” she concluded.
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