Africa-Press – Eswatini. With cases of gender-based violence increasing in an alarming rate, Southern Star Logistics has donated fuel worth E50 000 to Eswatini Action against Abuse (SWAGAA).
The fuel will assist the organisation in its outreach programmes and assisting clients.
The handover ceremony was held at Southern Star Logistics premises on Friday.
The donation was made during the course of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, which ended on Friday.
According to Southern Star Logistics’ Managing Director, Wayne Levendale, the company cared for the safety and welfare of women, hence the donation which is to ensure that SWAGAA continues its remarkable work in caring for abuse survivors.
This was reiterated by the company’s Human Resource Manager, Thabani Gina, who said out of 368 Southern Star logistics employees, 42 were women. She said every department had at least one female employee.
Appreciated
SWAGAA’s Executive Director, Nonhlanhla Dlamini, appreciated Southern Star Logistics for the donation, which she said would greatly benefit Emaswati. She said besides this period being for the observation of 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence, SWAGAA was overwhelmed by an increasing number of reported cases of abuse through the toll-free number 951.
Since late November where messages advising members of the public against murders and suicides were disseminated, Dlamini said SWAGAA saw an increase in the number of reported cases, some of which were complex and involved children.
As not all the clients manage to visit the SWAGAA offices or service centres, Dlamini said case workers needed to go to the clients in order to assist them.
Expensive
With fuel prices fluctuating, the director said it sometimes became expensive to reach their organisation’s clients.
“It’s fair enough to stress about the abuse, but it’s worse to stress about resources.” I hope other organisations will follow suit and support SWAGAA as its operations are dependent on donor funding,” said Dlamini.
On another note, the director noted with appreciation that there were a lot of companies that had been involved in the 16 days of gender-based violence activities in as far as sensitising their employees and the public.
She said there was a need for more support towards this worthy course.
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