Page 13 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021

“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers most”.
African proverb.
2. STRATEGIC PATHWAYS
As the title of this report suggests, tackling gender discrimination and violence is a battle of elephantine proportions, and associated suffering has been historically overlooked. However, the rise of the #MeToo and #TotalShutdown movements in recent years, and increased political protests, have publicly spotlighted the causes and consequences of gender and sexual violence and the limits of the law and the state in addressing them (see Judge and Smythe, 2020). Against this backdrop, the LDAs interviewed for this study are involved in various projects and initiatives to address multiple forms of violence in rural communities, including gendered violence. This section of the report presents and discusses the strategic pathways these organisations take to bring about change. Drawn from an analysis of the participating LDAs’ approaches as a whole, the pathways represent the primary routes through which GBV efforts are targeted, organised and implemented. Notably, these pathways are not exhaustive. Rather, they represent some of the primary ways in which LDAs strategically approach interventions and initiatives against GBV.
2.1
Grounded in community and survivor agency: “People find the solutions to their problems where they are”15
We call in community members and hear from them. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have all the answers. These communities know what they want and they have great ideas on how to protect one another.
Misiwe Ngqondela, CBO stakeholder.
An orientation towards community-centered interventions is a common characteristic of LDAs (SCAT, 2019), and is a distinctive strength tied to their rootedness in the local community and the legitimacy and trust this fosters. By extension, LDAs identify the social problems towards which their work efforts are directed, through engaging with community conditions and experiences and then structuring their gender projects in response to these. In rural settings, they are a key resource for individuals most directly impacted by GBV, as well as for the community as a whole to become increasingly involved in its mitigation. Their rootedness in community needs also positions LDAs as a source of local leadership and influence. At the centre of the approach is the notion that the community itself is able to generate, at least in part, the responses required, and that the LDA’s role is then to support such actions. Accordingly, gender strategising frequently starts with problem identification through community consultation processes, which shape organisational strategies to GBV.
15. Lesley Ann Foster, key informant.
“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV 13