URGENT CALL TO ACTION - SAVE THE SAARTJIE BAARTMAN WOMEN'S CENTRE FROM CLOSING
How can YOU help - WATCH the video of the Saartjie Baartman Women's Centre appeal.
TWEET @HelenZille - use the hash tag #saartjiebaartmancentre in your tweet - let's make this trend!
Why tweet to Helen Zille? Because she is leader of the Democratic Alliance party which has political control of the Western Cape and is the Western Cape Premier. She can DO something.
EMAIL Helen Zille - leader [at] da [dot] org [dot] za
Visit the Saartjie Baartman Women's Centre website HERE to read more
EMAIL the Director of the Centre Synnøv Skorge with letters of support or donations! synnov [at] womenscentre [dot] co [dot] za
The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children in Manenberg, Cape Town has a local and international reputation as one of the finest one-stop centres to provide free shelter, legal and counselling services, job-training programmes and other resources to abused women and their children. As one of the shelter residents says, “The Centre is for abused women. But it shouldn’t be called “for abused women”! This is the only place where there is never any abuse against women – it’s against abused women!” She was laughing as she explained this, despite the fact that she lost a pregnancy three days ago because her husband kicked her in the stomach. The Centre has for the past 13 years been a vital part of Cape Town’s response to the issue of violence against women, in their homes and elsewhere. In 2011 alone, over 4000 women and children drew upon their services for safety, housing, legal and medical support, job-training and overall support.
The proposed law results from consultations between the state and traditional leadership structures. It ignores the voices of millions of rural women disenfranchised by those structures.
The Traditional Courts Bill is meant to replace the Black Administration Act of 1927 with a law that is constitutional.
Instead, if passed, it will in effect strip between 17 million and 21 million people living in rural South Africa of many of the rights we enjoy in the rest of the country.
About 59% of these people are women, who, along with other members of their communities, will cease to be citizens and exist only as subjects.
As is stands, the bill creates a separate legal system for rural folk, geographically recreating the old Bantustans with no irony on the eve of the centenary of the 1913 Land Act.
Kristin Palitza interviews GABRIELLE GAUTHEY, executive vice president of global telecommunications provider Alcatel Lucent
CAPE TOWN, South Africa , May 8, 2012 (IPS) - On a continent of over one billion people, where half the population have mobile phones, the use of mobile communication and internet technologies is crucial to boost development in Africa.
This is according to Gabrielle Gauthey, executive vice president of global telecommunications provider Alcatel Lucent. She was one of the presenters at the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Review Summit held in Cape Town, South Africa, from May 3 to 4.
"We did not anticipate how rapid mobile broadband would be appropriated in Africa. There will be a computer in every pocket sooner than we think," Gauthey told IPS. She added that Kenya has made rapid progress, having already rolled out 3rd generation mobile communications
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