“There is a hidden pandemic raging among us. It’s called sexual and gender based violence”
From the time the founder of Precious Hearts Haven arrived back in Zimbabwe, from the kanthari leadership for social change program, the organization has been receiving an increase in the number of beneficiaries. The beneficiaries include victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence seeking counseling, legal advice, information and referrals.
Precious Hearts Haven was registered in 2020 as a Trust. We are working towards reducing and elimination of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in Zimbabwe. Among others, we rescue victims, offer temporary shelter, counselling services, psychosocial support, legal advice and skills training.
The increase in number of victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence has shown that there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the ground. Further to that it has shown that there is a great need to speed up the process of raising awareness campaigns. This however led to the creation of WhatsApp groups which focus on sexual and gender-based violence. We have reached to over 552 women and girls through this platform.
Stakeholder Interactions
Religious leaders have shown an interest in working with Precious Hearts Haven and will be participating in our forth coming influential women’s workshops to be held in May.
Mavambo Project
February was a fruitful month when it comes to activities and helping our beneficiaries. We successfully held our first Mavambo pilot project, an ongoing program where we use cooking and ingredients as methods of starting conversations on sexual and gender-based violence. The project was held in Zvimba Rural district and attended by Reverend Mr and Mrs Madi posing for a photo after a successful interaction on sexual and gender-based violence issues 26 women and girls aged between 18 to 25. We had four (4) facilitators who led sessions on red flags of abusive relationships, legal advisors and peer to peer support.
Over 400 people indirectly benefited from the Mavambo pilot project and we are currently being contacted directly by over 80 women and girls seeking help. We have assisted others and we are in the process of assisting others to free themselves from abuse.
Other Achievements:
We supported one beneficiary, a survivor of gender-based violence through all court proceeding where she was suing her abusive husband and the judgment was reserved for the 8th of April 2022.
We have managed to connect one beneficiary who is a survivor of abuse and became a drug addict after failing to cope with trauma to Mandipa Drug rehabilitation. Follow up will be done on this individual to see her progress and recovery.
We started our storytelling recordings from survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, on their success journey to be victors. These recordings will be aired on all our social media handles later this April.
On 8 March in partnership with Population Services Zimbabwe and Speak Out Voice It (SOVI) Organization, we celebrated international women’s day through
sports in Dzivarasekwa 1 Harare. Where over 100 women and girls were given information where they find support systems which helps on issues of gender-based violence. Women were also given free counselling services, free family planning advice and services, free legal advice and free BP and diabetic checks as a way of celebrating our day as women.
Precious Hearts Haven was invited to be part of a conference of women in Logistics and transport, where women were being appreciated for breaking bias in the transport, mineral, and logistics industry.
We had an opportunity as Precious Hearts Haven to participate in a Child rights coalition workshop held in Harare, where we were mapping ways to protect children in Zimbabwe.
Collaborations and Partnerships
We had the privilege to attend and participated in a girls’ mental health workshop which was arranged by Khanya Africa in February 2022. We were privileged to be afforded an opportunity to share and present to the audience about the red flags of abuse in families and relationships.
We did a partnership with Population Services Zimbabwe during celebrations of women’s day.
We did a partnership with Speak Out Voice It (SOVI) during international women’s day.
Media
Yampier Aguiar Durañona interviewed our founder Precious Kiwiti during her kanthari course for the Giraffe Heroes “Stick Your Neck Out Podcast”: Click here to listen
Dragonflies Everywhere founder Rekha Saleela Nair had a live Facebook interaction with our founder Ms Precious Kiwiti discussing why women find it hard to leave abusive relationships. Click here
An article from H-metro, one of the widely read national newspapers, wrote about the founder who made her start the organization Precious Hearts Haven. Click here to read
Upcoming project
We are creating safe places for women and girls in marginalized communities in all 10 provinces in Zimbabwe. For that, we would like to purchase our first 2hacters of land for our safe house. We are looking for USD 6780 shortfall from the total amount of USD9000 for that piece of land. In the meantime, because of the high numbers of women and girls who are looking for a place to run to from the abusive environment they are living in, we would like to set up safe haven on rented premises. In order for us to rent a 7 roomed house for 6months USD 2100 is needed Please contribute as per your financial situation to create safe places for women and girls.
Every dollar counts if you would wish to support us, the account details are below:
Name of account: Precious Hearts Haven
Account number/ IBAN: 56702726933012
Name of bank: BancABC bank, Chiredzi branch
SWIFT/BIC: FMBZZWHX
Bank address: BancABC Chiredzi branch, 56-57 chilonga drive, Chiredzi Zimbabwe
For more information write to us at: info@preciousheartshaven.org
