Human Rights Office, Projects and Progress

St Anne's Home

We have been working in partnership with St. Anne's Homes since 2008 and it is one of our longest running projects. St. Anne's is a non-governmental organisation which is under the patronage of the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of South Africa. They are a women's shelter, located in Woodstock, who care and empower destitute and disadvantaged mothers and their children.

As a shelter they are motivated by the principle of empowerment and do their best to enable disadvantaged and distressed women and their children to find relief, support and a chance to become independent, confident and self-sufficient. They provide a holistic self-empowerment program that develops social, personal, creative and vocational skills and a culture of mutual learning, accountability and respect for the unique value of every human being.

Volunteers visit the shelter twice a week to facilitate workshops for the women currently staying there. These workshops vary and are adapted around the interests and concerns of the women in the shelter at the particular time. The women present at the shelter changes on a fairly regular basis and so volunteers are challenged in that they must build up the trust of each new group that they work with. Without this trust the work we do there is not as effective and the women are less responsive

You can be creative in coming up with new workshops and topics, however such topics which are often discussed include women's rights, housing, employment and children's rights. Volunteers have also begun arranging trips out of the home for the women, for example on a tour of Parliament, and more recently a trip to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to treat the women on Valentines Day.

Volunteer Testimonies

"Despite the fact that on first sight it does not look like the most exciting project, getting to know these ladies was one of the most rewarding experiences for me. It has been amazing to see how they have been becoming more and more comfortable engaging with difficult subjects and that we have been able to create an atmosphere where these women, who all come from very difficult walks of life, all feel confident to speak their mind and form an informed opinion on some of South Africa's biggest problems. I've been learning a lot from their often unique and insightful way of looking at things."
Aglaja Kempinski, UK, 2 months