Project Management For Sexual Violence In Schools

Project Management: Sexual Violence in Schools

Project Relevance and Need

Discuss about the Project Management for Sexual Violence in Schools.

In the last few years, the cases of violence and sexual abuse against the feminine gender have risen considerably in South Africa. The victims are not only the older women but also infants and school children. The cases of violence start from bullying and mental torture and continue to grow significantly till physical torture and murder. Hence, South Africa requires urgent help and action to prevent these crimes and save the female population of the country. Soul City is one of the voluntary organizations that have come forward for taking suitable preventive measures against the rising number of crimes against the female population (Mncube and Harber 2013). The main area where Soul City will work in partnership with Grassroot Soccer is the violence against girl children in South African schools. According to the studies, at least 60% girl children fail to complete school each year in South Africa due to rising amounts of sexual abuse, harassment, bullying, emotional and psychological punishments, rape or even murder. The main aim of Soul City is to make the environments of the schools safer for the girl children so that they are able to complete the education without any fear.

The project is needed to reduce the crime rates and violence against women and South Africa and promote education among them. Moreover, self defense trainings will help the women and girl children to resist against an attempted abuse in any environment.

The project deals with the development of a safe environment for the girl children in school by increasing their resistance power against attempted abuse and reducing the violence against the girl children to as much as possible. Moreover, the main target of the project is to create a safe environment in the schools so that female students are able to complete their education without facing any kinds of violence or abuse. The project also targets training and counseling of the female students so that they are able to stand up against the criminals and abusers and successfully resist any attempts of abuse (Jewkes, Flood and Lang 2015). The cases of violence start from bullying and mental torture and continue to grow significantly till physical torture and murder. As a result, South Africa requires urgent help and action to prevent these crimes and save the female population of the country. Soul City is one of the voluntary organizations that have come forward for taking suitable preventive measures against the rising number of crimes against the female population.

Project Description

Hence, this project is aimed at reducing crimes rates against female students in school and helping the female students in completing their education without any fear.

The expected results are as follows.

1. Girls Empowerment – The first main target of the project and expected result is girls’ empowerment. Soul City aims at training the girl children in the schools so that they do not run away from schools and stand up against any violence or abuse attempt made towards them. Most of the abusers get more adamant as the girls run away from the schools instead of standing up against them. However, if the girls are able to stand up against these abusers and take action against them, it is expected the abuse rate will be successfully reduced significantly.
2. School Capacity Strengthening – Another expected result is the strengthening of school capacity against fighting of violence and abuse actions done on the female children. In order to reduce the rates of abuse and crime, school must play the major role and take immediate and suitable actions against the abusers (Meinck et al. 2016). Without the help of the school authority, the female children will not be able to stand up and resist the abuse attempts. The schools are expected to be able to identify the abusers and punish them strongly in order to prevent any acts of violence and abuse in the school boundaries.

• Participation of Parents – Another major target of the project is to educate the parents in guiding their children to fight against abuse attempts and violence. Moreover, it has been noticed that many parents are sexist in nature and abort or sell their girl children in favor of boy child. The project will focus on addressing this issue and educate the parents in realizing the fact that girl children are priceless treasures of a society. The parents must learn about the different abuse and violence activities that are faced by the girl children at schools. Moreover, they should also learn not to exhibit sexist behavior towards their children and treat all of them equally. If these targets are achieved, the girl children will be more encouraged to fight against violence and abuse.

1. Changing Attitudes of Boys – Another important target to be reached by this project is changing the attitudes of the boys towards girls. It has been seen that the mentality of most of the boys is to demean the girls and treat them with extremely low quality behavior (Barth et al. 2013). These cases of hatred lead to the violence and abuse practices of the boys. Hence, the boys must be educated in order to change these types of mentalities. The boys should be taught to treat girls equally and not abuse them. Unless the education starts at grassroot level, these mentalities cannot be changed generally. Hence, the target of this project is to educate the boys during primary school to respect girls and not abuse them.
2. Community Members – The final expected outcome of the project is the engagement of the community members around the schools to take active parts in stopping violence and abuse against girls in the schools. In order to resist violence and abuse attempt, the neighboring community members must take suitable actions and ensure the wrongdoers are not able to run away after doing some criminal activity in the school. Moreover, these community members can take active part in making the environment in school safe for all the students.

South Africa requires urgent help and action to prevent these crimes and save the female population of the country. Soul City is one of the voluntary organizations that have come forward for taking suitable preventive measures against the rising number of crimes against the female population. The main area where Soul City will work in partnership with Grassroot Soccer is the violence against girl children in South African schools. According to the studies, at least 60% girl children fail to complete school each year in South Africa due to rising amounts of sexual abuse, harassment, bullying, emotional and psychological punishments, rape or even murder (Shamu et al. 2015). The main aim of Soul City is to make the environments of the South African schools safer for the girl children so that they are able to complete the education without any fear. Due to the issues, the education system of South Africa is getting eroded and the literacy rate is also decreasing at a constant rate. Hence, the national scope of this project is increase in literacy rate in South Africa, especially the women.

In order to implement this project, Grassroot Soccer is collaborating with Soul City Institute for Health & Development Communication NPC. In this collaboration, stakeholders from both the organizations will take active parts in ensuring all the proposed plans and actions for creating a safe environment for girl children in schools of South Africa.

In order to ensure the project outcomes do not fail, a sustainability plan is necessary. The main objective of this plan will be to maintain sustainability of the project i.e. to continue providing safe educational environment in the schools for the girl children in South Africa (Bhana 2015). The project is based on a long-term effect plan for increasing the literacy rate of women in South Africa and prevent the violence and abuse against them. Hence, there must be a sustainability plan for the project that will have to be executed along with the execution of the project.

The evaluation of the project will be based on certain factors. These factors will depend on the actual outcomes of the project. As discussed previously, there are certain specific outcomes that are expected from the project. It is desired that all these outcomes be met in order at the end of the project. After the project is complete, a document will be prepared based on the generated actual outcomes (Dartnall and Jewkes 2013). The evaluation of this document will be based on the comparison between the expected outcomes and the actual outcomes. Hence, in order to find the actual outcomes, a survey will be conducted  six months after the completion of the project. The trend of the opinions of the girl children in the survey will determine the success of the project.

Expected Results

Figure: Logic Frame Diagram

(Source: Created by Author) 

References

Barth, J., Bermetz, L., Heim, E., Trelle, S. and Tonia, T., 2013. The current prevalence of child sexual abuse worldwide: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International journal of public health, 58(3), pp.469-483.

Bhana, D., 2015. When caring is not enough: The limits of teachers’ support for South African primary school-girls in the context of sexual violence. International Journal of Educational Development, 41, pp.262-270.

Cluver, L., Meinck, F., Yakubovich, A., Doubt, J., Redfern, A., Ward, C., Salah, N., De Stone, S., Petersen, T., Mpimpilashe, P. and Romero, R.H., 2016. Reducing child abuse amongst adolescents in low-and middle-income countries: a pre-post trial in South Africa. BMC public health, 16(1), p.567.

Dartnall, E. and Jewkes, R., 2013. Sexual violence against women: the scope of the problem. Best practice & research Clinical obstetrics & gynaecology, 27(1), pp.3-13.

Hinsberger, M., Sommer, J., Kaminer, D., Holtzhausen, L., Weierstall, R., Seedat, S., Madikane, S. and Elbert, T., 2016. Perpetuating the cycle of violence in South African low-income communities: attraction to violence in young men exposed to continuous threat. European journal of psychotraumatology, 7(1), p.29099.

Jewkes, R., Flood, M. and Lang, J., 2015. From work with men and boys to changes of social norms and reduction of inequities in gender relations: a conceptual shift in prevention of violence against women and girls. The Lancet, 385(9977), pp.1580-1589.

Lambert, C. and Andipatin, M., 2014. An exploration of student perceptions of the risks and protective factors associated with child sexual abuse and incest in the Western Cape, South Africa. African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention, 12(1), pp.35-51.

Mathews, S. and Benvenuti, P., 2014. Violence against children in South Africa: Developing a prevention agenda. South African Child Gauge, 1, pp.26-34.

Meinck, F., Cluver, L.D., Boyes, M.E. and Loening-Voysey, H., 2016. Physical, emotional and sexual adolescent abuse victimisation in South Africa: prevalence, incidence, perpetrators and locations. Journal of epidemiology and community health, 70(9), pp.910-916.

Mncube, V.U.S.I. and Harber, C., 2013. The dynamics of violence in South African schools. UNISA, Pretoria.

Otwombe, K.N., Dietrich, J., Sikkema, K.J., Coetzee, J., Hopkins, K.L., Laher, F. and Gray, G.E., 2015. Exposure to and experiences of violence among adolescents in lower socio-economic groups in Johannesburg, South Africa. BMC public health, 15(1), p.450.

Shamu, S., Gevers, A., Mahlangu, B.P., Shai, P.N.J., Chirwa, E.D. and Jewkes, R.K., 2015. Prevalence and risk factors for intimate partner violence among Grade 8 learners in urban South Africa: baseline analysis from the Skhokho Supporting Success cluster randomised controlled trial. International health, p.ihv068.