Rape Crisis - our experience

Established in 1976, RCCTT (Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust) is one of the oldest and most experienced organisations working within the sphere of violence against women. Member activists have actively addressed the challenges of improving the access to care, treatment and justice for rape survivors, and they have recently gained significant support from government to implement reform policies that will aid survivors. These initiatives include:

• the successful lobbying for a change in the sexual offences legislation,
• the setting up of specialised sexual offences courts,
• the setting up of victim support centers at police stations, and
• creating dedicated medical facilities linked to creating an effective and efficient service for rape survivors.
• provision of counselling and support services to a number of survivors and their partners, family and friends.
• successful implementation of awareness interventions in schools and communities.
• continuous empowerment of women from surrounding communities through the Rape Crisis volunteer programme.
• recognition of skills and expertise on the issue of rape and violence against women by partners and other sectors in South Africa.

RCCTT continues to provide counselling and support to thousands of rape survivors and their family and friends, and continues to communicate with communities, organisations and government on creating and maintaining awareness around rape.

How is RCTT unique?

RCCTT is one of the most experienced organisations in dealing with violence against women, and specialises in dealing with rape. Our experience and specialised skills in this field are well recognized, as can be seen by the number of requests we receive to deliver presentations at conferences, seminars and workshops. RCCTT strives to achieve its aims and objectives through an integrated community development approach, and we are confident that we will continue to make positive changes to create a safer environment for women and children, in the communities that we serve, and Western Cape as a whole. We are also confident that the services we offer are a step ahead of other organisations, such as:

• Support groups for rape survivors
• Special support for survivors who want to share their experiences with the public
• Aromatherapy treatments for rape survivors
• Pre-Trial Consultation advice to rape survivors
• 24-hour Counseling and support to partners, family and friends of survivors
• Assisting small organisations with the development of submissions to various legislations under committee discussions
• Constructive relationships with key role players within the criminal justice system
• Working in partnership with the Mabuphele Campaign and the Saartjie Baartman Centre
• Strong networking partnerships with networks, ngo’s and community based organisations
• Committed and passionate volunteers who are active within their community structures

Our philosophy

Rape Crisis believe that men and women need to take collective responsibility to curb violence against women and it is through this partnership that real change will take place in our society.

We maintain a feminist understanding of how violence against women is produced and perpetuated and as to what the effects are. We believe that rape is one form of gender based violence that is produced in part by the social attitudes that we carry toward the relationships between men and women.

We believe that there must be a change in the behaviour of men in their treatment of women in their personal and social relationships as well as in what they perceive the role of women to be in society bin general.

Similarly, we believe that there must be a change in the behaviour of women, in the way that they protect themselves and insist on their rights in their personal and social relationships with men.

For these reasons, our public education projects focus on sharing information about rape and on challenging those social attitudes that we believe contribute towards the perpetuation of sexual violence in our society.

Rape Crisis counseling is based on a feminist approach which asserts every woman’s right to be an active participant in her own healing, where she makes her own decisions and her strengths rather than her inadequacies are the main focus of attention. Expressing the feelings associated with rape can only happen in an environment of support rather than blame and in a situation where there is a sense of equality. She exercises the choices that lead her towards her own growth and change and a greater sense of her empowerment.

The same is equally true of the men who are counseled at Rape Crisis.

How we function

Rape Crisis Cape Town was registered as a Trust in February 1999. The various forms within the organisation are as follows:

Management Structure

Board of Trustees

The Board fulfils the external management functions of the organisation. It comprises 7 elected and 3 ex-officio members (the Director, a Staff Representative and a Volunteer Representative), and is responsible for holding the ethos of the organisation in trust, giving it direction, deciding how it will be managed (rules of meetings and decision making, and policy development, etc.), overseeing the management of resources, acting as a court of appeal in disputes which internal management cannot resolve, and taking final legal and financial responsibility for the organisation. The Board meets quarterly. From among its own membership, the Board elects the office bearers, i.e. Chairperson, Vice-Chair and Treasurer.

Joint Strategy Meetings

All Project Coordinators, the Financial Manager and the Director form the Joint Strategy team and meet once a month to discuss projects. This team uses this space to discuss and formulate strategies that will assist in achieving the vision and mission of the organisation.

Staff Meetings

All staff meets on a monthly basis to discuss issues pertinent to staff and the organisation.

Focus Group Meetings

These forums involve the volunteers active within a particular focus group and the staff member who heads up that focus group. Thus the Observatory Counselling Group, and the Training & Public Awareness Group have their own monthly meeting, as do the Heideveld Training & Public Awareness Group, and Khayelitsha Counselling and Training & Public Awareness Groups. The Focus Group meetings make practical decisions about the ways in which they will function. They are forums where volunteers make inputs into policy development, evaluation of our work, and proposals about new positions, new policies etc. Focus Group meetings are also places of support and supervision for volunteers, and they identify areas where ongoing training and specialised inputs are required to sustain and improve our services. Where appropriate, joint Focus Group meetings are arranged across areas of work and across offices to build relationships within the organisation as a whole.

Volunteer Forum

This is a new forum within Rape Crisis Cape Town, and its role is being defined, although in some ways it fulfils the functions of the old General Meeting. It is envisaged that it will be a place where all volunteers across the organisation can meet to discuss issues of common concern, and to ensure that these are reflected at Board level via the Volunteer Representative. The Volunteer Forum is also a social opportunity and supper is served at the conclusion of these meetings. The Volunteer Forum meets every three months (March, June, September and December).

Annual General Meeting

The AGM is held each year, within six months of the end of our financial year. This means that we usually hold it before the end of September. The purpose of the AGM is to report to friends and the public at large on our work and especially on how we have spent our budget during the previous twelve months. The AGM is also usually the place where we formally appoint our auditors. The appointment of new Board members is also done at the AGM, as well as confirming the members of the Board.

Should a position on the Board become vacant for whatever reason, nominations for a new Board member would be called for from the organisation as a whole. This requires that members of the organisation both propose and motivate for new Board members, and at least two RCCT members have to nominate and second prospective new Board members. The remaining members of the Board then elect the new member from the nominations.

Decision making

Depending on the issue, the process of decision making would involve discussions at volunteer level at Focus Group meetings or Volunteer Forum and then either Staff or JSM level, depending on whether it is related to the organisation or a project. After consultation with both the volunteers and the staff, decisions could be made at staff or JSM level and some referred to the Board for ratification, depending on the matter.

The process is not as cumbersome as it might seem, and it ensures that Rape Crisis Cape Town has entrenched in it’s decision making as wide and democratic a representation as is possible. With the added value of communication technology, we have attempted to retain as far as is practical our commitment to being a democratic organisation.

Feminist counselling

The work of counselling involoves creating a space in which someone can find her way back into her life. Given that women often experience ourselves as powerless or “stuck”, counselling involves a primary commitment to validating a woman’s right to her feelings, decisions, and intelligence.

Abuse makes everyone feel inferior and disrespected. It is all too easy for these feelings to complement low self-esteem or dependency many women already experience through their relations to men (and other women!) at work and in their families.

Women’s immense strength, courage, intelligence, and strategic know-how very rarely get valued in systematic ways. In counseling, the value given to a woman’s own self (her particular way of thinking, being, and feeling) can reveal for her - and the listener - the inner resources she posseses. It is these resources which can empower her into recovery from what she has experienced - a recovery which is about regaining the “self” sexual violence attempted to destroy.

In that the work of counselling assumes women’s right to self-definition and to control over our own lives, it is feminist.

It is also feminist in its commitment to complete social equality, and in its recognition of the need to learn everything possible about the way both privilege and discrimination have distorted and shaped out ideas and lives.