Community Action towards a Safer Environment (CASE) – Organisation
South Africa
Western Cape
Cape Town
Mountview High School, Athwood Road, Hanover Park.
Description
Community Action towards a Safer Environment (CASE) has been functioning in Hanover Park since 2001, with formal NPO (Non-Profit Organisation) registration in 2005. CASE has its roots deep in the community and its developing theoretical understandings and all its activities, incorporate input from the community.
The ongoing socio-economic inequalities, social fragmentation, and individual socialisation patterns have been asserted as amongst the spectrum of causal factors complicit in the persisting prominence of violence in South African society. Violence has continued to permeate our everyday realities.
CASE’s community based psycho-social intervention was developed from the need to address problems of ongoing, pervasive violence and continuous trauma. We at CASE believe that this is the root cause of and also perpetuates the ongoing cycle of violence and dysfunction that exists in the community. CASE addresses this issue by using a holistic ecological approach to break the cycle of crime and violence that individuals are exposed to. In doing this, CASE largely operates on a volunteer basis, recruiting volunteers from the community and hereby allowing for maximal ownership of its programmes and projects. CASE’s ecological approach of working recognizes that when individuals are given the opportunity to process the traumas of their past in a safe space, they build the resilience needed to counter the ongoing effects of trauma and are provided with important skills. Further, through processing their traumatic experiences in a safe environment, they will be empowered to make a difference, not only in their lives but within their community as well.
Members of the community are recruited, trained and developed into community leaders, volunteer trauma counsellors, mentors, facilitators and community project managers.
CASE relies on the concept of the intervention being systemic and that the shift in one system will have an impact on another system. Our programmes targets individuals, family, school and the broader community systems. It is therefore, likely that a CASE counsellor who has acquired skills on conflict management is able to apply these skills within her own home and positively adapt her way of disciplining her children.
Vision and Mission
Vision: In feeling safe and secure comes a new freedom for individuals - and we would like to see this freedom lived out as we learn to respect each other’s human rights.
Mission: CASE seeks to break the cycle of crime and violence in which young people live, by equipping community members to recognise and respond appropriately to both the causes and effects of crime and violence in their communities. CASE seeks to achieve its mission through three related programmes, namely a) the Training and Personal Development Programme, b) the Community Development Programme, and c) the Research and Advocacy Programme.
CASE works through integrated community development programmes
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Project |
Aim |
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Psychosocial Counselling Project
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Reduce cycles of violence through providing psycho-social support to 1000 children, youth and their families and creating awareness through violence prevention groups |
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Men's Mentoring Project
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Community men engage with each other to become positive men of influence in their families and in their community. They become positive role models to other men, their partners, youth and children, thereby changing the perception that masculinity is equated with violence. |
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Youth-in-Action Workshops:
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Youth are empowered and equipped to be more aware of the alternatives to crime and violence in their community. They are mentored to develop as role-models and become agents of positive change in their community. |
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LIT/F.A.C.E Project
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These clubs are designed to keep primary school learners safe and reduce the risk of being a victim of violence on the streets. The FACE clubs are supervised by trained adults and youth who engage the learners in activities that are educational and recreational.
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