Over the next two years an extensive action-research programme will help communities in Soweto and other parts of Johannesburg's South to look behind the dramatic indicators of sexual violence towards possible solutions.

The project will be run by Johannesburg's Southern Metropolitan Local Council (SMLC), in partnership with CIETafrica, the national arm of the NGO, CIETinternational. Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has provided approximately R1 million for the two year programme.

"It is important that people who manage the project do not impose their ideas on the community. We are here to help residents, women and men, to identify and to implement solutions. An other objective of the project is to transfer skills. The community must be able to continue implementing such stakeholder information systems on their own in order to solve future problems," says Professor Neil Andersson one of the research leaders and executive director of CIETafrica.

Earlier this year the SMLC hosted Land Development Objective Workshops where communities were given the chance to voice their needs. For the purpose of these workshops the SMLC was divided into seven areas. Five of those indicated "safety" as their greatest need. In the remaining two, safety was mentioned second, after health (Eldorado Park) and economic development (Orange Farm). Overall 68% of respondents said safety was their greatest concern.

"If the economic reconstruction under way in South Africa is to have any meaning for the people living in Johannesburg's South, there is an urgent need for preventive peace-building and psychological reconstruction" says Dr. Shan Naidoo, Strategic Executive for Health and Social Services of the SMLC.

The fact finding initiative will aim to identify community-led solutions to sexual violence in Johannesburg's Southern Metropolitan region, including Soweto and the informal settlements of the "Deep South" (including Orange Farm, Weilers' Farm and Poortjie).

"No one knows quite how common sexual abuse is," says Prof. Neil Andersson. "Some claim one woman in every five in the area has been raped. Increased policing, health care and social services have been unable to offer a solution or even to quantify its incidence."

The process used for this action research programme, called sentinel community surveillance (SCS), gathers information from communities and feeds it back to them thus helping them formulate their own solutions. This is repeated in a cyclical fashion. Each cycle looks at the gains from the previous cycle, while new questions which have been raised are taken up in the next one.

Each cycle follows the same steps:

• Local interviewers and supervisors are trained.
• They conduct household surveys, institutional reviews and interview key informants.
• Preliminary analysis is done on these data.
• The preliminary results are taken back to the communities where they are discussed in focus groups.
• Members of the community, local government, NGOs and community based organisations discuss the conclusions of the community level interpretations of the findings and decide on their own responses.

CIET uses these methods of evidence based planning in all their projects. It has already been used successfully in 39 other countries. CIETafrica is the latest arm of the international non-profit, non-governmental organisation, whose vision is "building the community voice into planning and governance."

The acronym CIET comes from the name of the postgraduate research centre in Mexico where the organisation began in 1985: Centro de Investigación de Enfermedades Tropicales (Centre for Tropical Disease Research). The same acronym is used by the international non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in New York to reflect its values on Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency.

As the project will focus on the community voice, local NGOs, community leaders and other relevant organisations will be involved in an initial design-information session at the end of November, during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. For further information contact: Dr. Sharmila Mhatre (CIETinternational - 082 880 6113 or email: smhatre@compuserve.com), Ms. Marina Penderis (407 6315) or Dr. Shan Naidoo (SMLC - 857 1510).

Issued by Marina Penderis
Acting Manager: Media and Marketing
Southern Metropolitan Local Council
Tel: 407 6315

On behalf of:
Dr. Shan Naidoo
Strategic Executive: Health and Social Development
Southern Metropolitan Local Council