Practitioner – Florence Masetla

CLIMB is an organisation dedicated to breaking the silence on sexual violence, empowering survivors and creating a powerful movement of change. The movement is present in over 15 countries on 4 continents and is still expanding. The movement was started by two One Young World ambassadors Poonam Thimmiah and Shada Abuhattoum after attending the 2014 Summit in Dublin, Ireland. CLIMB officially started in February 2015. The South African Chapter started end May 2015 by Florence Masetla, the founder of the Florence Masetla Foundation and the One Young World Ambassador. CLIMB is determined to bring a societal change by encouraging survivors to speak up and share their stories. Not only so we can help support them on the healing journey, but so, as a culture, we can overcome the stigma and social repercussions that exist in our society. The organisation creates survivor videos and shares them across social media to challenge, educate and change societal norms. We also participate in educational outreach programme to help break the silence and taboo surrounding sexual assault. All of these activities centre around filmed mountaineering expeditions that support survivors of sexual abuse to overcome the challenges that stand in their way. CLIMB represents the journey that the victims take to become survivors. CLIMB represents the journey that we, as a society need to make to overcome the social repercussions that exist today CLIMB also represents the physical journey that we plan to take together to the mountains across the world and eventually to the Everest base camp. We are planning small climbs along with survivors in some of our chapters, to symbolize the physical and mental challenges that a survivor faces. Our plan to ascend Everest base camp has been put on hold because of the recent earthquake in Nepal. We will re-plan and reassess once the Everest base camp opens up for public. Until then, we plan to continue with articles, short videos, presentations, smaller climbs and other collaborations.

Civil society and community based organisations, Education, NGOs/CBOs, Sport / Recreation

General / Other, Children, Domestic violence / Intimate partner violence, Gender-based violence, Monitoring & evaluation, Policing, Prevention concepts, Public spaces, Public violence, Sexual violence, Youth and violence