Domestic and Gender-Based Violence at Core of Workshop

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The Advice Desk for the Abused - an NGO dealing with domestic violence - held a Crisis Intervention Training workshop on Domestic and Gender-Based Violence at UKZN’s Innovation Centre.

Senior Politics Lecturer Dr Lubna Nadvi said the workshop was conceptualised to identify the prerequisites for assisting victims of domestic and gender-based violence to understand the phenomenon of such violence, the law relating to it and how to assist victims.

‘From this workshop, the participants were able to understand what constitutes an intimate abusive relationship and to develop skills in interviewing, assessing and helping survivors. It also helped them to learn how to handle the stress related to counselling victims,’ said Nadvi.

The workshop further covered the role of the Advice Desk as well as various case studies, including human trafficking, role-playing activities and managing trauma.

Masters student in Psychology, Ms Zanele Jele, said the workshop had been both informative and engaging, believing it was an eye-opener to societal violence.

Politics student, Mr Sizwe Msweli, said: ‘This workshop gave us the skills and capacity to change the discourse of society and with this knowledge I hope to make a difference to society and my country.’

The Advice Desk has served as an internship and in-service training partner for various UKZN academic departments - in particular Social Work and Psychology - for many years, leading into research and learning bases for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The Desk has a Research portfolio currently held by Dr Anthony Collins, who was formerly based in the School of Applied Social Sciences at UKZN, and Ms Sam Howlett, an MA graduate of UKZN.

The research portfolio function strives to position the Desk as a key site of research, given its availability of data, practitioner oriented focus and willingness to partner with academic institutions.

In 2010, the Desk, together with a UKZN-based research team, secured a prestigious SANPAD grant to research issues around gender-based violence and ways to alleviate this scourge from broader society.

This will facilitate further research opportunities for UKZN academics as well as give preference to students wanting to register for masters and doctoral degrees at UKZN as they will be awarded bursaries from the grant.  

It is anticipated that the UKZN / Advice Desk SANPAD project will generate several published outcomes, including MA and doctoral theses, an edited book collection and several journal articles. 

Other partners in the project include the Cape Peninsula Institute of Technology and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

 Melissa Mungroo