Eva.Ramokobala's blog

Lebo and I were facilitating the citizen journalism workshop this week in Cape Town. The venue for the workshop was the Saartjie Baartman Centre in Manenburg. Although the venue was slightly far from the CBD, we chose it because of the many different female organisations that are based there. Sadly, none of the organisations based there were part of our training but it was still nice interacting with them.

 

This past Saturday I attended the National Summit of Women hosted by SAWID at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg. The aim to "provide a platform for inter-generational dialogue from a woman's point of view".

It was made clear to the women attending the workshop that there would be no talk of the state of the South African politics and that none of them were to wear t-shirts representing any political party. This was a pity because I would have loved to hear what the diverse multitude of "imbokotos" had to say about the elections.

The Centre for the Study of Violence Research (CSVR) Domestic Violence Act conference ended on Friday with little uncertainty that the Domestic Violence Act has been progressive over the past ten years.  The delegates only seemed to agree that it only provided protection if implemented correctly.

The purpose of the DVA conference was to reflect on the ten years of the DVA by looking at what has worked, what is not working and the way forward.  When asked to list what has worked in the past years, the delegates did not have much to say but they had a lot of recommendations.  

On Friday at the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) conference, Sithokozile Thabethe from the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZALWA) spoke about the role of traditional leaders in domestic violence cases in Zimbabwe.  The act permits the chiefs to adjudicate psychological and economic domestic violence cases.

Yesterday was the first day of the CSVR Domestic Violence Act Conference.  The conference is held at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein and will continue for the next three days.

According to Adele Kirsten the director of CSVR, the purpose of the conference is to reflect on the past years of the implementation of the DVA by looking at what has worked, what did not and what the way forward is.

When thinking about the way forward, Kirsten said that we should keep in mind that the external climate differs completely from ten years ago.  

written 15 November, posted 16 November 

The AWID experience has really given me a lot to think about but I am having difficulty documenting this thinking. I don't know where to start!

And so it ends!  One of the most amazing experience I have had this year.  

The participants in the digital story track successfully completed their stories.  They were all so beautiful even though they had little time to produce them. 

Today is the second of the Feminist Tech Exchange taking place in Cape Town at Monkey Valley.  Different amazing women from all over the world have all gathered here to learn more about the linkage between information communication technologies and women's rights.

Gender Links hosted "Strategic Communications on National Action Plans to End Gender Violence and IT capacity building workshop" on the 6 & 7 October 2008.  The purpose of the workshop was to:

• To develop a targeted communications strategy for 16 Days of Activism.
• Use the 16 Days of Activism Campaign to leverage the 365 Day Action Plan.

Keba, Lebo and I are facilitating computer training at the South African Women In Dialogue forum (SAWID).  The forum is held at the Birch Wood Hotel in Boksburg.