{"id":235775,"date":"2022-08-31T14:06:52","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T12:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/womens-assembly-holds-sit-in-after-funding-cut\/"},"modified":"2022-08-31T14:06:52","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T12:06:52","slug":"womens-assembly-holds-sit-in-after-funding-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/womens-assembly-holds-sit-in-after-funding-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Assembly holds sit-in after funding cut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a><\/p>\n

Vanessa Nelson read out the Women\u2019s Assembly memorandum at the <\/span><\/span><\/span>Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education yesterday. Photo: Liezl Human<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Women\u2019s Assembly held a sit-in at Bertha House in Cape Town on Tuesday to protest against their funding from the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education being cut.<\/p>\n

The organisation is made up of activists from the Cape Flats, including the Bonteheuwel Development Forum, Hope for the Future, Housing Assembly, and the Delft Safety Forum. Members picketed<\/a> in Constantia earlier this month.<\/p>\n

About 40 members of Women\u2019s Assembly handed over a memorandum to Tshisimani staff, demanding why funding they had been promised until December had been cut. They threatened to occupy Bertha House, where Tshisimani is a tenant, unless they got a response.<\/p>\n

Vanessa Nelson of the Women\u2019s Assembly and Hope for the Future said to GroundUp that she took offence to Tshisimani calling the Women\u2019s Assembly a \u201csocial group\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said the educators in the group held counselling sessions and workshops with members about gender-based violence and rape. Kashiefa Achmat, chairperson of the Housing Assembly, said that the education the members get is about their daily struggles. She said they talk about gender-based violence, inequalities, patriarchy, and gangsterism in their communities. \u201cThis is the space where we talk about these things. This is a form of education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Zelda Holtzman, executive director at Tshisimani, and other staff members explained to the protesters that Tshisimani\u2019s funding from its sole funder, the Bertha Foundation, had been withdrawn. Holtzman said Tshisimani initially had a three-year contract but in April had been informed that this year it would not be funded. The organisation had to cut programs by 35%. \u201cSome we were able to keep, others were cut completely,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said support had been provided for the Women\u2019s Assembly education team when it was announced that the organisation\u2019s funding as a whole would be cut. \u201cThe intention was not to abandon the movement,\u201d said Holtzman.<\/p>\n

But Nelson said that all or none of the team must be funded.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Tshisimani apologised. Tshisimani said the decision to support only the education and learning team was not in line with its commitments to the Women\u2019s Assembly for 2022 and had been taken without consulting Women\u2019s Assembly members. A further meeting with the Women\u2019s Assembly would be held where its members could plan the way forward.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vanessa Nelson read out the Women\u2019s Assembly memorandum at the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education yesterday. Photo: Liezl Human The Women\u2019s Assembly held a sit-in at Bertha House in Cape Town on Tuesday to protest against their funding from the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education being cut. The organisation is made up of activists from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-235775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/womens-assembly-holds-sit-in-after-funding-cut.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}