Lynda Gledhill
Compassion, caring and commitment has kept a non-governmental organisation in Pietermaritzburg alive despite a severe shortage of donor funds.
While other organisations close down when the funding tap is switched off or fail to report properly to funders when extraneous spending occurs, Winnie Kubayi has kept her project alive and manages to report accurately spending as bizarre as buying groceries for her target community.
Kubayi is the director of the Centre for Justice at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, which is trying to provide access to justice for women and children.
The 30-year-old lawyer says she has no interest in working in the private sector, where she can certainly earn more money.
“It’s difficult to let go. I don’t want to disappoint a community,” she says. “I want to help as many people as possible out there.”
The centre was started in 1990 as an autonomous organisation of the University of Natal’s School of Law. Its goal was to reveal the shortcomings of the criminal justice system and suggest possible improvements. However, it worked almost exclusively as an academic institution and had little interaction with the community.
In 1994 the programme was revised to focus on projects, and in 1997 six satellite offices were established as support and resource centres for victims of rape and abuse.
The centre started with a mere R40 000 in funding, and some were afraid it would only survive a few months. Additional support came from the European Union and co- ordinators who volunteer their time. Kubayi says there may not be enough money to keep the programme going, let alone the expansion needed to meet demand.
“The offices are already there and people depend on them,” she says. “It’s like giving a hungry person a steak and then taking it back. We’ve started something good for the people. How can we take that away?
“There is no warmth in a police station. Women explain what has happened and they just laugh. They want to know why she was there in the first place and why didn’t she enjoy it.
“We remove her from that environment and allow her to talk to an independent, trained person. We take her statement, make sure she gets necessary medical treatment and then bring the information to the police.”
Kubayi says police have responded well. They are responsive when someone from the centre tells them where they can find an alleged perpetrator.
The centre runs workshops to encourage victims to report their cases. But information sharing is only a small part of the co-ordinators’ work.
“There is transportation. Most of these women live far from town and cannot access medical help. The medical attention is critical, but also costs a lot.
“There was a girl who was being raped for over a year and had venereal diseases that kept coming back. Many of the boys who have been sodomised need medical attention. The blood tests cost a lot of money.”
The centre also has to pay for things it never anticipated when it started out — for example, buying groceries for hungry children.
“It is a humanitarian thing,” Kubayi says. “You go to attend to a case, and there is just a hut without a proper floor or windows. There is nothing to eat in the house. You look at the children who are so hungry, and what can you do? We try to come up with the money for food, out of our own pockets if necessary.”
Being able to help people like this is a major reason that Kubayi continues to work at the centre.