The Special Director of Public Prosecutions: Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (Soca) Unit of the NPA, Adv Bonnie Currie-Gamwo, accepted the SPAR Group donation of a monthly supply of groceries of R300 000 to be used to feed people who seek assistance at the 60 Thuthuzela Care Centres (TCCs) managed by Soca across the country.
The handover ceremony took place at the Atlantis Thuthuzela Care Centre Monday (11 April) based at the Wesfleur Hospital. Gamwo said it was fitting that the handover ceremony took place in Atlantis, as it has been one of the highest levels of Gender Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) in the country. The facility serves the communities of Atlantis, Pella, Mamre, Philadelphia and Melkbosstrand, and has rendered invaluable service to more than 2 577 survivors of sexual offences since its inception.
The Spar initiative has committed itself to making donations each month, to provide non-perishable food items, hygiene and sanitary products to all TCCs across South Africa.
These are used on site as means to ensure all gender-based violence survivors are able to access an efficient and sensitive criminal justice that is quick, accessible, responsive and gender inclusive.
In a speech read on his behalf, Spar Group Company Secretary, Risk, Sustainability and Governance Executive, Kevin O’Brien said the group valued family and the work the group was doing to raise awareness of individual’s rights as victims of gender-based violence, was in keeping with the company’s commitment to deal with the significant issues that face society, of which GBV is such a crippling and important one.
He said: “We are privileged to be able to partner with the National Prosecuting Authority, to provide much needed support to existing TCCs, and to assist with the development of new ones. SPAR is committed to doing whatever it can to raise awareness and constructively implement meaningful and practical ways to assist those who are victims of gender -based violence.”
O’Brien further urged government to consider dealing with gender-based violence via the Disaster Management Act, describing this pervasive social ill as a pandemic of a different sort deserving equal attention.
Welcoming the donation, the Wesfleur Hospital CEO Dr Earl Meyer said Atlantis had many big companies and the hospital needed only five more to join the SPAR Group to make a big difference in the local community.
“This TCC is so unique, and without these collaborations, it will not work,” he said. “If we have these collaborations we can make a huge difference in this community.”
Adv Bonnie Currie-Gamwo said that to comprehend the magnitude of the donation fully, one must understand the context. South Africa has one of the highest levels of GBVF in the world, and President Cyril Ramaphosa declared it a national crisis and took the bold step to introduce the National Gender-based Violence and Femicide Strategic Plan (NSP) in 2020, to address GBVF in the country effectively. She said: “The NSP is unique as it makes the process of addressing GBVF a collective process.
“It gives joint accountability to both the public and private sector, to address GBVF. It calls for bold leadership, coordination and for GBV victims to access a criminal justice system which is sensitive, victim centric and survivor focused.
“Against this background the SPAR donation embodies the strategic private public collaboration, encouraged by the President to address GBVF. It is also historic as it one of the first such collaborations between the NPA and the private sector. Survivors will not rely solely on the state and NGOs to deal with GBV+F. South Africans are coming together as a collective to deal with GBV+F. Every South African, every corporate entity needs to ask ‘what am I doing to fight GBV+F’.” she added.
