Interview with Masimanyane's Lesley Ann Foster (Organizational Director)

Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre works on violence against women and girls. They are a women’s human rights organisation based in East London in the Eastern Cape and have nine offices in the province, with a staff compliment of 48 people.   As a feminist organisation Masimanyanane subscribes to the values and principles of the African Feminist Forum. Lesley Ann Foster, Organisational Director, asserts that Gender inequality is the biggest challenge facing women in this country. She points out that these inequalities manifests as Violence against women and are also reflected in the gendered nature of  HIV/AIDS. With structural issues such as poverty and the way it impacts more deeply on women being another major issue. To combat this, Masimanyane has a strategic plan in place which addresses violence against women. Fosters says they work on developing women’s leadership capacity so that they are empowered to tackle these challenges themselves at family and community level. The organisation also works on exacting state accountability through a research and advocacy programme aimed at improving government policies and ensuring that they meet their commitments as made under various international agreements. Foster says one of the issues being dealt with sufficiently by gender organizations in South Africa is that organizations do not work strategically. She says we are not building enough capacity for strong advocacy initiatives. We work piecemeal instead of holistically.   One of the biggest challenges facing Masimanyane as an organisation is capacity. According to Foster there is a huge in our country but the capacity is low. While Masimanyane is maturing as an organisation there is still a need for more professional staff but Masimanyane struggles to find people who want to work in the Eastern Cape. Even though they try to keep salaries market related this does not always attract the right skills.   To address challenges they face, Masimanyane formed partnerships with other organizations to bring capacity into the organisation. They conduct programmes with larger institutions such as the International Labour Organisation when working on trafficking or the Population Council when conducting research on HIV. This has assisted the organisation to grow inspite of their capacity shortages.   Among their successes, Foster says that she personally feels that she has succeeded as a gender activist in that she knows the issues and is learning more each day. She says she can analyse any situation or document from a gender perspective and is able to make valuable inputs into any discussion at a local  or nationally level as well as regionally and internationally. In the country, Foster feels that they, as an organisation has made strong inputs into policy initiatives such as the domestic violence act and the maintenance act. They also produced South Africa’s first NGO Shadow report which was submitted to the UN in 1998. They also raised concerns about child marriages and the abduction and transporting of child “brides” to new homesteads which became a priority issue for the national government who set about outlawing child marriages.   As the organisation’s director, Foster says has a passion for and loves working with women and growing their knowledge and capacity. She also enjoys being able to take them out of their limited environments and being able to show them greater possibilities for their lives. Masimanyane ensures that at least 5 women a year travel to international conferences and they arrange an annual study trip to parliament for women who have never had the opportunity to travel. The organisation also invests in training women. Masimanyane has been well supported/funded over 15 years of their existence. According to Foster the change in donor’s focus and strategies having an impact on Masimanyane. They have had to learn to think differently and work differently in this changing environment. She states that you have to be ready to meet those changes, and Masimanyane is doing just that. They brought together a mixed group of experts to examine their work and to give their views on what they are doing. These experts are assisting by bringing new thinking into Masimanyane’s funding strategies.