Interview with Nisaa's Sima Vallabh (Advocacy and Research Manager)

Nisaa Institute for Women's Development assists women and their children who have been abused. They do that through counseling on a crisis basis – which is now extended to a three month period – and increasing women’s awareness of violence against women and HIV, date rape and sexual rights issues. Nisaa also offers a training programme that includes basic and advanced counseling, self esteem workshops, a peer counseling course to school children, and training for CVOs and other NGOs to assist them to develop their advocacy strategies. They run a two day workshop on the interface between HIV and violence against women. Sima Vallabh, Nisaa’s Advocacy and Research Manager says that the organisation is a feminist organisation because they work to advance women's political, cultural and economic rights and freedom. Nisaa’s counselors look at how women can protect themselves against a partner who is not willing to negotiate sex and they explore with women the options they have. They help women plan an exit strategy when they are ready and willing and provide information about health issues and nutrition. At their shelter, Nisaa supports women to get jobs with practical assistance such writing a CV. They have sewing machines and computers that they encourage women to use. They want to start a beading programme so that women can make jewellery which Nisaa will help market. This income will enable them to start their lives independently of their abusive partners. Through their programmes, Nisaa aims to end violence against women hence their counseling work is curative and their training work is preventative. Vallabh concedes that all their programmatic work points that they are and consider themselves a feminist organisation. The organisation works locally, operating in Lenasia, Orange Farm and Soweto in Guateng and they have targeted programmes to try to increase the conversation between people around sex and consent. Vallabh says they believe both people must consent to sex. They approach their work around sexual rights awareness in the spirit of dialogue. Many women that come through Nisaa’s doors are not turned away; the organisation assists individual women who access Nisaa's shelter. According to Vallabh, many come without papers and get help to obtain a protection order against their abusive partner or tell Social Development that they are staying with Nisaa because they need to provide a physical address to meet the new Seeker requirements. Nisaa's shelter clients come from all over Africa so in that sense, Vallabh says they consider themselves to be working regionally. Although their public awareness programmes are delivered across Gauteng , they have one advocacy training programme that is delivered nationally. To widened their reach, the organisation had a radio programme on Channel Africa, which is broadcast to 54 African programmes. One big challenge that Nisaa faces is the need for gender sensitive service delivery from the police and the courts. Vallabh says at the moment, women are not getting the protection and support they need from the structures that are supposed to protect human rights. The second challenge, which she points out, is the need to keep women’s rights on the agenda. At the moment, Vallabh says she thinks women’s rights are suffering by being lumped together with children’s rights. "There are really specific issues that women face that need special attention, says Vallabh". She also indicates that there has been a shift from women’s programmes to HIV/AIDS in the donor community. Obviously HIV is a huge problem in South Africa but Vallabh says she thinks funders need to acknowledge that violence against women is major contributing factor to HIV and that it is not possible to address HIV without a gendered analysis. To respond to these major issues facing women, Nisaa does a lot of networking with other women’s organizations because they believe there is strength in numbers. One example is the work Nisaa has done together with other organizations on the Shukumisa campaign which looks at monitoring and evaluating how police stations, courts and health services approach rape and domestic violence and how they should be doing this according to the Sexual Offences Act. Vallabh emphasises that initiatives like these are about ensuring women get the justice they deserve. It is also about letting state services know that someone is watching; letting them know that women's organisations do not condone what they do and that they are taking steps to do something about it. Nisaa has received funding to monitor police stations around the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act. They plan to gather experiences and evidence of what women face when reporting to police in the areas that Nisaa works, that is Lenasia, Orange Farm and Soweto. This will be done through interviews with police personnel, observation and speaking to their clients. Nisaa's plan is to approach individual police stations that have performed badly and say 'this is what we found. Can we work together to solve it?' If they are not wiling, Nisaa will then take it up with Independent Complains Directorate (ICD). This is one of the ways Nisaa is trying to ensure women get gender sensitive service delivery. Vallabh says that they also sit on a board/panel with the Department of Social Development and are also pushing for a 365 day national action plan for addressing violence against women. The aim for this is to make 16 Days of Activism to end violence against women to be a priority all year round. Like other NGOs, Nisaa has also had to face the challenge of staff turnover. They have lost experienced staff and then need to invest a lot in building the capacity of new staff. This, Vallabh, attributes to a need for skill development that needs to take place which is an invisible cost within NGOs. She says that some funders do focus on capacity building but it tends to be project-specific rather than for general staff capacity building and this has been difficult. Attracting people into roles as welll has bee difficult and according to Vallabh they’ve been trying to recruit someone for finance role who has both financial experience and NGO experience and this has taken over a year. Another big issue is burnout, Vallabh points out. People are working harder than ever yet there is less funding and fewer resources. Plus, the nature of Nisaa's work means that their counselors have to hear stories and work with traumatised women day-in-day-out. During the World Cup, there will be an increase in human trafficking, so it will just get busier in Nisaa's shelter. So this results in burnout which Vallabh points out is a major factor for people to leave their jobs. Although Nisaa has tried to implement staff wellness programmes which have been well received, it is costly. They have had a few experiences where people will do this for free. For example, currently they are sending staff members on pampering sessions. Students from a school approached Nisaa wanting clients to practice massage and so on and they have offered this for free. They also do team building and debriefing. However, the person that was doing debriefing left and Nisaa are only just putting that in place again. Funding is a major challenge, especially now that major funders are pulling out of South Africa, for example Oxfam Novib from the Netherlands. According to Vallabh, finders are moving to Zimbabwe. South Africa is not considered a priority country. Nisaa initially had funding secured until 2012, but they just had a meeting with donors who said they now cannot guarantee their funding beyond 2011. According to Vallabh, the shifting priorities in the external environment make it very difficult internally and yet it’s not something they have control over. They look for other funding opportunities but this is difficult and time consuming. She says they invested a lot in building relationships with their donors and now they have to start from scratch. "I think staff in women's organizations work pretty hard and have a lot of passion and dedication for getting women the justice they deserve. I don’t know – perhaps we are too close to see what else could be done? I think collectively, women’s organizations are doing a pretty good job, says Vallabh".