WOMEN

EMPOWERMENT

Women Empowerment Mandate

Just Grace has adopted a women empowerment mandate in order to facilitate a long-term focused approach to gender equality.

The mandate is outlined below:

GIVEN

That women were previously disadvantaged by the Apartheid regime, and
That the same systemic barriers from the Apartheid era continue to act as barriers for women today, and
That the rights to life, equality, freedom and security have not been achieved equally for both men and women since 1994, and
That the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, declares women to have equal rights, and
That the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, makes provision for the empowerment of certain previously disadvantaged groups of people including women.

IT IS MANDATED

That Just Grace adopt a women empowerment approach to all of its programmes, and
That this approach makes provision for special considerations to be made regarding women in the recruitment and admissions of beneficiaries, and
That this approach will be implemented in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality, and
That Just Grace ensures that there are special programmes, initiatives and/or projects that are aimed at achieving the goal of women empowerment and gender equality.

CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION

Our staff complement conforms to the redress goals of the B-BBEE Act of 2003, as amended.
Our programmes include initiatives with the specific goals of women empowerment and gender equality.
This includes our girls’ and women’s support groups, our community workers’ support, our girls’ rights advocacy groups and our girls’ health education project.

All programmes include women empowerment provisions relating to women recruitment, participation and admissions.
We have a specific partnership with the local law clinics and law firms to empower victims of sexual violence and domestic violence in the community.

Just Grace has adopted the The South African Framework for women’s empowerment and gender equality’s definition of empowerment as: the process of ‘conscientisation’ which builds critical analytical skills for an individual to gain self-confidence in order to take control of her or his life.