ContentsTruth and Reconciliation Department Education and Training Department |
The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) is an independently funded South African non-governmental organisation, affiliated to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Since its inception in 1989, the CSVR has been dedicated to making a meaningful contribution to peaceful and fundamental transformation in South Africa and hence, in the Southern African region. The CSVR is committed to:
In pursuit of these broad objectives, the CSVR engages in:
The CSVR works with a wide range of organisations, constituencies and stake-holders in both the governmental and non-governmental sectors. These include (amongst others):
The CSVR is a multi-disciplinary unit, engaging the services of sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, social workers, lawyers, educationalists, historians, etc. - all under one roof. The Centre's spheres of expertise relate to a wide range of forms of violence and conflict, including criminal, political, domestic and gender violence, violence against children, violence emanating from the processes of development, violence in industry as well as within the educational sphere.
Through our programmes, it is the CSVR's mission not only to service the processes of transition and democratisation, but to help generate peace and reconciliation essential to the long term prospects of sustainable socio-economic development in South Africa and in the sub-continent.
Therefore, the primary goal of the CSVR is to utilise its expertise in building reconciliation, democracy and a human rights culture within Southern African governance and society. However, because the CSVR's work is rooted in an analysis of the shifting forms of conflict and violence within societies enduring a transition to democracy, much of the Centre's work is drawn upon in the wider international context.
In the wake of the euphoria of the 1994 election and the much heralded peaceful South African transition, 1995 proved to be a uniquely challenging year for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR). Far from representing a "miraculous" end to the transition process, the April election in 1994 really represented the beginning of a more fundamental process of transformation. As a consequence, 1995 presented a range of issues which were symptomatic of the difficulties of a negotiated transition and which were often un-anticipated or under estimated. Many of these challenges arose from the very processes of negotiated compromise which were intrinsic to the shift from the politics of confrontation in South Africa.
Perhaps most obvious in this regard, were two agreements negotiated by the various political parties at Kempton Park.
The first of these was the "sunset clause" which provided for the retention of civil servants within the line departments of government structures. This presented a challenge which has shaped developments within governance in South Africa in the years which have followed. New policy makers and new political leadership confronted the substantial difficulty of winning the support and active participation of departmental bureaucracies in the implementation of new policy perspectives. Furthermore, the retention of key personnel within state departments, also laid bare the challenge of building and transforming state institutions which had to overcome the public mistrust often associated with them under Apartheid. In terms of the CSVR's broad objectives to build reconciliation and to contribute to the consolidation of democratic governance in South Africa, our work was fundamentally influenced by these developments within government - particularly in the Departments of Welfare, Education, Policing and Correctional Services, with which we are specifically concerned.
The second key compromise negotiated at Kempton Park which played an important role in shaping the work and agendas of the CSVR during 1995, was the entrenchment of an amnesty clause within the "post-amble" to the interim constitution. Apart from the challenges which this added to the transformation of state institutions, this compromise also substantially shaped the terms of the reconciliation-building process and the subsequent development of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The key role of the CSVR in mediating the effects of these political agreements has dominated the definition of our agenda in the past year.
Whilst the challenges outlined above are somewhat obvious ingredients which emerged from the negotiated transition, there are some other factors which are perhaps less obvious, but which were no less influential in shaping the strategic objectives of the CSVR in the course of 1995. Foremost amongst these was the implicit challenge of development and service delivery which confronted the new government and to which the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was the primary governmental response. However, the processes of redress through reconstruction are understandably medium to long term in nature and delivery is, in the short term, at best haphazard. However, economic development has been widely - and rather naively - viewed as a "catch-all" solution to problems of violence and political instability, with scant view being given to the new conflicts and social tensions which such developmental initiatives may generate within communities divided over scarce access to resources. In the work of the CSVR during 1995, the paradigm of "human development" and the imperative of rebuilding the social fabric of communities devastated by years of marginalisation, has been practically asserted. The CSVR's developmental work during the past year has demonstrated that the rebuilding of social and political infrastructure in South Africa, along with the need to grow and sustain a culture of human rights, are inseparable from the processes of economic and physical reconstruction.
However, the extent to which the South African transition has often been romanticised, has been manifest in the frequent descriptions of South Africa as a "post-conflict" society. In reality, however, this is insensitive to the changing nature of conflict in post-Apartheid society, rather than the termination of such conflict. This narrow view is often premised on the past anticipation by analysts (including ourselves) that failure by the government to deliver on popular expectations of development, job creation, housing, etc. may result in a "political back-lash", particularly on the part of a marginalised and impoverished youth constituency. But, this "political back-lash" did not materialise, leading many (perhaps even government) to become complacent. However, it is arguable that the parallel decreases in political violence and increases in criminal violence in the post-Apartheid era, reflects precisely such a back-lash - but it is manifested in growing criminalisation, rather than a politically articulated process.
These are the dilemmas of the South African "miracle" with which the CSVR has had to work over the past year and which continue to shape our future agendas. They all relate directly to the CSVR Departments and their respective activity reports which are detailed in this Annual Report - from the Youth Department and the Truth and Reconciliation Department, to the Trauma Clinic, the Policing and Prisons Research Projects, and the CSVR's Education and Training Department.
In addition, there have been other more "sector-specific" concerns which have emerged as part of our transition in the past year. Not least of these has been the growing "organisational schizophrenia" which has confronted non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as the CSVR, in having to span the traditional NGO activities of service substitution and critical scrutiny of government - as well as maximising the potential of new opportunities for creative lobbying and partnerships with government. Increasing demand and the growing complexity of our relationships with government has also presented certain dangers. In particular, the ease with which organisations like the CSVR can be drawn into full-time implementation on behalf of government, threatens to undermine the creative policy research and pilot interventions upon which our expertise has historically been based. However, in creatively harnessing the potential of these "dangerous opportunities", it is our evaluation that the CSVR has gone a substantial way towards defining a new NGO perspective and approach - which is as much a product of the South African transition as the conditions in which it was conceived.
Nonetheless, perhaps the greatest irony of the South African transition has been the implicit threat which it has unwittingly contained for the NGO sector. In the CSVR's 1994 Annual Report, we alerted our donors to the absurdity that NGOs appeared to be less able to survive the attentions of a friendly government, than they had been in dealing with the hostile Apartheid regime. In particular the tendency of government to recruit key NGO staff, has had a serious detrimental impact on many of these organisations - especially in view of the fact that government generally pays considerably higher salaries than those affordable within the NGO sector.
Whilst we have little doubt that this will produce more effective government institutions, in the long-run it seriously undermines civil society and the capacity of the NGOs in particular. However, even in the light of these ongoing dilemmas, we remain positive and (rather typically) analytical. To this end, in the tradition of NGO optimism, we psychologically reconstruct the detrimental impact on our operations which results from government recruitment of our staff, as if it is a kind of "conquest through traitorship". Whilst retaining a sense of humour in relation to these processes, it is important that their impact on effective representation of the needs of marginalised South Africans is not to be too glibly overlooked. This is best illustrated by the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has drawn heavily on staff recruited from the NGO sector, rather than sub-contracting NGOs and thereby assisting to build their capacity rather than undermine it. However, the ultimate irony resides in the fact that once its limited two year life cycle is completed, the TRC and South African society will ultimately depend on the NGOs to translate its work into the building of a sustainable human rights culture in the schools, factories and state institutions - yet it is very uncertain as to whether these organs of civil society will have retained the capacity to do so.
To overcome some of these problems, there is a need for NGOs to offer more competitive salaries and increased benefits to their staff. However, this depends on effective fund-raising and the recognition by donors of these developing priorities. This should be conceptualised as an investment in individuals who, through civil society, are instrumental in ensuring a lasting democracy.
Ultimately, for the CSVR - as for most NGOs - our major indispensable sources of value are our human resources. This was as true of 1995 as in the years which preceded it. This Annual Report is ultimately a tribute to the dedicated, committed, self-sacrificing, self-exploiting and utterly unique people who have worked their hearts out in this organisation over the past year. One of them deserves special mention - not for his being here, but for his leaving. In 1995, the former Director and founding member of the CSVR, Lloyd Vogelman left the organisation. His remarkable contribution to this organisation and to the wider South African community cannot be properly captured in words on a page. Suffice it to say, for the CSVR this is the end of an era.
The management and staff of the CSVR wish to express our gratitude to the full range of embassies, institutions and foundations which have made such generous contributions in support of the various activities, projects and programmes of the CSVR during 1995.
In particular, the CSVR and its staff are indebted to those long-term donors who have provided the organisational and occupational stability which has allowed the Centre to flourish over the past seven years. In times of great change and budgetary "belt-tightening", it has been the sustained commitment of our core funding partners which has enabled the CSVR to consolidate (and even expand) our organisation and its activities - at a time when many of our fraternal South African NGOs face the spectre of retrenchments or even permanent closure.
The full list of the Centre's financial supporters during 1995 - through either donations or substantial commissioned work - is provided in alphabetical order below:
Anglo Vaal Group Trust (SA)
The Belgian Embassy
Bread for the World (Germany)
The European Union (via SACBC)
The Ford Foundation (USA)
FOS - Fonds voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking (Belgium)
Gencor Development Trust (SA)
ICCO (The Netherlands)
IDASA - Institute for a Democratic South Africa (SA)
Interfund
IZA (Netherlands)
Embassy of Ireland
Johannesburg Consolidated Investments (SA)
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (UK)
Justice in Transition (SA)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
Medico International (Germany)
The National Peace Accord Trust (SA)
One World Action (UK)
Oxfam UK & I (UK)
The Royal Danish Embassy
The Royal Netherlands Embassy
Charity Projects/Comic Relief [via Save the Children Fund (UK)]
St. George's United Church (SA)
Standard Bank Foundation (SA)
In addition, there have been many contributions to the CSVR's work made by generous individuals. These are too numerous to list individually here, but are all separately itemised and acknowledged within the financial statements.
No substantial changes have been made to the CSVR's management structures in the course of the past year. Members of staff are therefore still accountable firstly to the various Departmental Coordinators and to the Director of the CSVR. The CSVR Management Committee, consisting of all the Departmental Coordinators, the Director and the Deputy Director, has been functioning efficiently and has become increasingly innovative in developing policy for the Centre as a whole. Both the Management Committee and the monthly All-Staff Meetings have fulfilled an increasingly positive role in facilitating communication and coordination between the activities and employees of the various CSVR Departments.
The CSVR's University-based Steering Committee has undergone significant changes in membership in the course of 1995. In preceding CSVR Annual Reports, concern has been expressed over the lack of effective community representation on this Committee. In particular, it was felt that the racial and gender profile of the Steering Committee was inadequately reflective of the constituencies served by the CSVR. To this end representation was made to the University and membership of the Steering Committee was changed accordingly. The Steering Committee now has a gender and racial profile which is more representative of disadvantaged elements of South African society (the Committee previously consisted of seven white men). However, by virtue of the fact that Committee members have to be drawn from the University itself, the broad community constituencies served by the CSVR are still felt to be under-represented. This concern will once again be taken up with the University in the course of 1996.
The continued expansion of the Centre's activities has necessitated a concomitant increase in the staffing of the CSVR's Administration Department, as well as a critical evaluation of its functions and the services it provides to the staff of the various departments and to the organisation as a whole. In particular, the Department has had to set up and sophisticate a wide range of administrative systems during 1995.
Due to problems experienced with the University accounting system, in 1995 it became necessary for the CSVR Administration Department to develop the capacity to provide a detailed and accurate accounting system - independent of that provided by the University. This system now services the working budgets of all the Centre Departments and projects, as well as servicing the CSVR's donors. The Administration Department has also developed an extensive database of all the CSVR's donors, partners, clients and contact networks. In addition, in 1995 the Department organised the Centre's seminar programme, provided assistance in the convening of conferences and workshops, assisted staff with technological and computer support, as well as with secretarial back-up, and organised most of the in-house training for CSVR staff.
At the end of 1995, the Administration Department consisted of the Administration Coordinator; a part-time bookkeeper; a part-time information systems assistant; a full-time receptionist; a full-time secretary/administration assistant; a part-time messenger/office assistant; one full-time personal assistant to the Director and Deputy Director; and a full-time Funding Assistant.
The Administration Department effectively serviced the remainder of the Centre, which numbered 31 staff members by December 1995. It is anticipated that the staff complement of the CSVR will be further increased early in 1996. In view of this, it is considered imperative to recruit a full-time human resources/personnel officer in the course of 1996. Other Departmental plans for 1996 include the upgrading of the CSVR's information and communications technology, especially securing the Centre's access to E-Mail and the Internet. This will demand technology upgrading and will be accompanied by increased demands for staff training in this area - both of which will be dependent on available resources. It is also recognised that the Administration Department will have to more effectively service the Centre's public relations functions and assist in further developing the organisation's media profile.
The Centre's commitment to staff development and training was severely limited by funding constraints during 1995. The absence of an adequate staff development fund within the core CSVR budget is largely due to the failure to adequately anticipate the extent of this need in the original three year core funding proposals, prepared at the end of 1993. Nonetheless, many of the CSVR's staff have attended short courses offered by the University and by other NGOs, various skills development seminars and workshops, and some overseas conferences. The CSVR also encourages its staff in the pursuit of further post-graduate qualifications relevant to the CSVR's work. It is hoped that a more structured and in-depth staff training and development programme will be put in place in the course of the coming years, but this will be dependent on available funding.
The Centre's commitment to the recruitment and development of black and women staff continues. However, this is with some difficulty, as the salaries offered by the University (and funded by our donors) are lower than the market average. The premium placed on lateral entry affirmative action strategies employed in both the state and private sector, therefore makes it difficult to recruit skilled staff - and even more difficult to retain those trained at the CSVR. Nonetheless, the CSVR's Affirmative Action Committee continues to play an important role in all staffing, recruitment and staff development issues in the Centre.
The CSVR's Internship Programme is a key affirmative action initiative which has been in operation for several years. Thami Mayisela, one of the black trainees recruited in 1994, was employed in the CSVR's Youth Department as a trainer in 1995. Tlhoki Mofokeng was also employed as a trainee on a short-term contract and was soon promoted to the position of Field-worker in the Truth and Reconciliation Department. Another intern, Naseera Ali, completed her research internship contract in the Truth and Reconciliation Department at the end of September 1995, and has subsequently taken a post in the newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Naseera also worked extensively with the Policing Research Project during her internship and, along with her mentor on this project, completed a joint research report on labour relations in the South African Police Service. The success of the Internship Programme is in large part due to the commitment of all the staff of the Centre to the training and empowerment of newly qualified black and women graduates, and it is anticipated that this programme will continue into 1996 with equal success.
It is generally accepted that the turnover of staff in NGOs is higher than in the private or state sectors, and the Centre continues to lose skilled black staff, predominantly to various government departments. Several former CSVR staff have taken key positions in both provincial and national government departments over the past two years, and this has been documented in previous CSVR Annual Reports. Whilst this clearly represents a feather in the cap of the Centre, it nonetheless has a significant negative impact on the capacity of the organisation. The constant cycle of re-building capacity is not aided by difficulties confronted in staff recruitment, low salaries relative to those available elsewhere and limited resources available for staff development. To this end, in the course of 1996, the CSVR will have to consider creative methods to narrow the gap between the salaries offered by the Centre and those available elsewhere.
However, it is important to note that these staff losses are more than offset by the increasing commitment - particularly by senior staff - to the work of the Centre and to the NGO sector. This is evidenced by the growing number of staff who have now been with the Centre for three or more years, many of them having turned down comparatively lucrative job offers from other quarters. The dedicated, skilled and selfless staff of the CSVR remain its primary asset and it is for good reason that the salary bill of the CSVR constitutes almost 50% of the organisation's annual budget.
Under the committed hand and watchful eye of Andie Miller, the CSVR Resource Centre has grown into a significant library of research articles, books and policy documents on various aspects of violence, reconciliation and human rights, which services both Centre staff and the public. The sale and distribution of publications continues steadily, and although the Resource Centre does not generate much money, it does make a significant contribution to its own running costs.
Researchers and students from the University of the Witwatersrand were amongst some of the greatest users of the CSVR Resource Centre during 1995. The documents, materials and services of the Resource Centre were also extensively sought after by a wide range of NGOs, community groups and libraries, as well as by members of the press and the electronic media. A large number of interested individuals and members of the public also added to the Resource Centre's walk-in clientele. In particular, large numbers of requests for information, packages and specific research papers were received from abroad - from a wide range of organisations, educational institutions, academics, journalists and individuals. The Resource Centre has also been keeping the CSVR's donors informed about new research and publications produced by the CSVR staff.
In addition to servicing all of the above, much of 1995 was taken up with updating and maintaining the "institutional memory" of the Centre, so that anything written by past and present staff members can be accessed quickly and easily, when required.
Because of the administrative burden involved in the running of the Resource Centre, at the beginning of 1995 it was decided to relocate it within the CSVR Administration Department on a trial basis. However, it soon became clear that the Resource Centre would benefit greatly from a greater interface with the information base of the CSVR, upon which basis it was best able to service the CSVR's public educational objectives. It was therefore decided that in 1996 the Resource Centre should once again be relocated within the Centre's Education and Training Department. This decision was also linked to the CSVR's expanded production of popular and multi-media educational materials. It is imperative that the Resource Centre is very closely involved in the production, marketing and distribution of these materials, making the CSVR's Education and Training Department the natural home for the Resource Centre.
It is our evaluation that the CSVR is now at a point in its development where it is necessary to expand the technological and organisational capacity of the CSVR Resource Centre - and we are in the process of fund raising to facilitate this process. This will enable us to upgrade our computer equipment, become networked and employ another staff member to take over the administration of the Resource Centre which continues to grow daily. This increased capacity will allow us to document our resources in a more sophisticated way, and will mean that we can make our research more widely available and engage in more substantial networking with organisations involved in similar work to ourselves.
The upgrading of the Resource Centre is also imperative to developing and expanding the CSVR's research capacity, as well as its lobbying and advocacy functions, and is therefore a strategic priority in the years ahead. In this respect, the opening up of the "information super-highway" is a very exciting prospect for an organisation such as the CSVR and we expect that 1996 will provide us with many previously unimagined opportunities. Unfortunately the CSVR does not currently have the financial resources to achieve this expanded functioning and fund raising for the Resource Centre will therefore have to be specifically undertaken in the course of 1996.
The CSVR Trauma Clinic continues to play an important role in the delivery of trauma counselling to victims of violence. Although the past year has witnessed a decrease in the number of referrals for political violence, there has been a marked increase in referrals due to violent crime and levels of sexual and domestic violence remain extremely high. This has impacted on the lives of all South Africans and affects functioning within homes, the workplace and schools. It is therefore critical for the emotional and psychological well-being of all South Africans that trauma counselling, as well as education and training on the effects of violence, is offered to as many sectors of society as possible, and the Trauma Clinic plays an essential role in this respect.
The centrality of the Clinic is especially important in view of the understandable failure of the new government to quickly remedy the non-delivery of these basic mental health services to the majority of South Africans - which was inherited with the virtually non-existent social welfare infrastructure of the Apartheid regime. Furthermore, the importance of such services is receiving wider recognition in the context of government's commitment to dealing with the past through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the development of a victim-centred National Crime Prevention Strategy.
During the course of 1995, the Trauma Clinic expanded its staff complement to five full time members, including Palesa Makhale-Mahlangu as the Coordinator, Mary Robertson as the Clinical Supervisor and Merle Masinga as the Clinic Receptionist. Michelle Whiteside unfortunately left the Clinic in October to return to her home in the United Kingdom; the position of child therapist has been filled by Marilyn Donaldson who joined the Clinic in November. In July the clinic recruited Jill Huber, another clinical psychologist, to assist with the increasing demands for training, supervision and counselling. At the end of the year Palesa Makhale-Mahlangu went on maternity leave and was replaced by Mary Robertson as the Acting Clinic Coordinator.
In addition to the full time staff members, a Social Work student from Wits University completed her practical training in the clinic, a mutually beneficial arrangement which we hope to continue and which has the support of the University. The capacity of the Clinic was also enhanced by the participation of trained volunteers.
Staff members participated in various staff development courses, including conferences and seminars, computer training courses, telephone skills training, public speaking and management courses. Our receptionist participated in the Volunteer Trauma Counselling Training Course, which has improved her skills in handling the traumatised public when they attend the clinic and when they phone in.
The extended capacity of the CSVR Trauma Clinic remains a priority for 1996 as the demand for our services appears to be almost limitless. Unfortunately, recruitment of skilled personnel into this sector is particularly difficult, especially considering the non-competitive salaries being offered. Further recruitment of staff will remain a priority for 1996.
In 1995, the Trauma Clinic had a total of 853 new referrals for individual trauma counselling, excluding clients that were seen in groups for group de-briefings. Of this total figure, 759 were adults and 94 were children. This doubles the intake of the previous year in which a total of 432 new clients were referred.
Most of these clients were seen for short term counselling of between four and six sessions. However, for some of these clients, this was insufficient and they needed additional sessions. This was due to the complexity of their difficulties and the multiple and ongoing traumas to which they had been exposed. Another complicating factor is that many clients have suffered bereavement/s and need grief counselling in addition to the trauma counselling.
The Clinic continues to see both direct victims and witnesses to violence of various forms, including political, criminal, sexual and domestic violence. Over the last year there has been a significant increase in referrals due to criminal violence, in particular armed robberies and car hijacking - which together constituted about 70% of the adult referrals. Of concern has been the increasingly high levels of violence used in such situations and the multiple incidents of violence that people have been exposed to.
The Clinic also received an increasing number of referrals due to road accidents and taxi violence. A growing number of refugees has been serviced at the Clinic in the last year; these clients present with multiple social needs as well as being traumatised by the experiences which have contributed to their refugee status.
Group debriefings have been conducted in different sectors, including the retail sector, mines, schools, emergency service groups, clinics and the security industry. Various companies have entered into contracts with the Clinic to service their organisations with individual counselling and group debriefings as required. A number of family debriefings have been carried out and there has been a greater emphasis on family interventions, due to the establishment of the Child Therapy Unit.
Volunteer counsellors continue to play an integral role in the Trauma Clinic. A new group of volunteer counsellors participated in the training programme, conducted for two afternoons per week over a period of ten weeks, when a total of twenty counsellors was trained. A number of these counsellors have left the Clinic to pursue further studies or full time employment. At present, there are eleven volunteer counsellors still servicing the Clinic. The reduction in our volunteer counselling staff has placed additional strain on the remaining staff, particularly as we have lost many of our African language counsellors. The next volunteer training programme will be conducted in April 1996 and is intended to train as many additional African language counsellors as possible.
While it is unfortunate that there is a relatively high turnover of volunteer counsellors, this seems to be in keeping with the nature of volunteer agencies in general. Furthermore, the training provided constitutes a significant investment in developing trauma counselling capacity in the wider community. The work experience and training gained by the volunteers in the CSVR Trauma Clinic has directly assisted many of the volunteers to find employment, as well as with entrance into further studies in related fields.
The volunteers have seen many clients for individual trauma counselling as well as assisting clinic staff with debriefings, outreach work, networking and training workshops, particularly with school children in order to raise awareness of sexual abuse. The volunteers continue to receive regular supervision and ongoing training in order to consolidate and build on their existing skills.
During the course of 1995, the Trauma Clinic provided numerous training programmes, ranging from short introductory talks to full three - five day training workshops. These were conducted in Gauteng as well as in other regions such as Kwa-Zulu Natal. The workshops and training programmes were offered to a wide range of interest groups, including corporate clients, medical and para-medical professionals, the South African Police Services and educational institutions. Much valuable training material has been generated through servicing these varied requests and it is intended to collate these materials into manuals for future use.
Every training programme run by the CSVR includes a formal evaluation to provide feedback so as to continually improve the training service delivery. In general, the feedback that the Clinic has received in relation to its various training programmes has been very positive, and has generally led to further requests.
The training offered by the Clinic is considered essential to providing others with skills to further facilitate the long-term provision of victim aid and effective management of trauma in South Africa. The training that has been provided to groups such as police and emergency personnel, teachers, nursing staff, doctors and managers is considered particularly important, as these are the people who are often the first point of contact for the traumatised public. It is our evaluation that sensitive and professional handling at this stage can significantly reduce further secondary victimisation and also enhance the prospects of survivor recovery.
In 1995, the Trauma Clinic continued to liaise and work with various organisations involved in service delivery, including organisations such as: People Opposed to Women Abuse (POWA), Joint Enrichment Project (JEP), various church groups, the Red Cross, various legal aid and resource centres, the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO), the 702 Crisis Centre, Compassionate Friends, Child Line, the Kwa-Zulu Natal Project for Violence, the Cape Town Trauma Centre, the National Peace Accord Trust and the Gauteng Regional Mental Health Forum. A closer working relationship has also developed with various state institutions such as the Departments of Health, of Social Welfare and various units of the South African Police Services, such as the Child Protection Unit.
The Clinic has networked with a number of international organisations such as Amnesty International, as well as with trauma counsellors from other countries. The Trauma Clinic's international profile and networking ability has been substantially enhanced through our relationship with the Danish-based International Rehabilitation Council On Torture (IRCT). In 1995, Palesa Makhale-Mahlangu was an acting IRCT Council member and towards the end of the year, was appointed as the sole representative for Africa on the IRCT Bureau. Her three year term on this decision-making body commences in January 1996. Palesa remains a full member of the IRCT Council as well.
Much of the Trauma Clinic's national networking has been conducted through a process of mutual referrals, visits, speaking engagements and joint projects. Due to the limited resources generally allocated to trauma work in South Africa - combined with the sheer magnitude of the problems related to violence in the country - it is considered essential for effective service provision that these national networks and channels of communication be further developed and maintained. The cooperative working relationship between NGOs in this sector is crucial to establishing a national network of service providers which contributes significantly to filling the gap left by the effective non-delivery of state service providers in this sphere. In this respect, the networking relationships being developed by the CSVR Trauma Centre should be seen to offer much more than simply communications channels for cooperation. We are involved in building the service infrastructure which, in years to come, should ideally be subsidized or taken over by government.
The Trauma Clinic has also substantially developed its lobbying and advocacy functions in the course of 1995. Although this aspect of the Clinic's work has largely taken a back seat in the context of our service delivery and training priorities, it is considered extremely important to develop the capacity to influence public perceptions and state policy formation in regard to victim support. Through our service provision activities, the CSVR Trauma Clinic has developed a unique access to the grassroots concerns of victims of violence and crime. As such, we have recognised and sought to enhance our capacity to translate this access into effective lobbying and public awareness of the service and policy priorities which urgently need to be addressed in South Africa. In particular, in 1995 our attention was focused on issues related to child abuse and, in the course of the year, a network was established with other role-players to propose changes in the management of child abuse in the police and criminal justice system. It is anticipated that the Clinic will need to play an increasingly active role in lobbying around related mental health issues in the future.
During 1995, the Clinic became involved in an outreach project in Orange Farm, which is an informal squatter settlement in the Vaal, south of Johannesburg. The Clinic offered a service once a week during which a number of individual children were seen for counselling and a group of volunteers from within the community were trained in child abuse awareness programmes. The outreach programme was not without its difficulties and the Clinic learned some valuable lessons through this experience, which will hopefully improve our approach to any future community development work. In particular, the difficulties in delivering trauma services within impoverished communities which have absolutely no infrastructure, cannot be underestimated. Furthermore, the delivery of such services inevitably taps into the broader range of needs within these communities, and special attention must constantly be given to managing these engagements in a specialised field without raising expectations of wider delivery which will inevitably be frustrated. These frustrated expectations have the potential to damage community confidence in the delivery of trauma services.
In the course of 1995, the CSVR Trauma Clinic expanded its outreach programmes considerably through providing numerous presentations in schools, businesses and for community organisations. Clinic staff also participated extensively in various community radio talk shows and television programmes, and produced articles in the printed media which allowed us to educate sectors of the public about trauma. The Star newspaper continued to run a regular free advertisement for our service, which has resulted in many referrals.
Another aspect of our outreach work has been to link clients with other organisations when they require services beyond the scope of the Clinic. This has included accompanying and referring clients to agencies dealing with AIDS, substance abuse, termination of pregnancies, and a range of other social and physical needs.
Client data for the year is entered into our database, which was reviewed and extended during 1995. As a result of the upgrading of this database, additional information will be available from the beginning of 1996, including such data as: details about the perpetrators of violence; HIV status following rape and child abuse; the use of weapons in violent incidents; and the nature of the crimes committed. This database can then be used to inform research and policy work, as well as assisting us to maintain statistics on the clients we see and the needs of our client population.
1995 witnessed a tremendous growth in the activities and scope of work in the Child Therapy Unit. At the start of 1995, the publicity of the Child Therapy Unit was made a priority. A programme of networking was undertaken and media contacts were made to ensure that different children's groups were targeted. This has proved to be highly successful and the Child Therapy Unit is now an integral component of the Trauma Clinic services. There has also been close co-operation and joint work between the Unit and the Children and Violence Intervention Project of the CSVR.
As a result of this growth, the Child Therapy Unit receives approximately twenty new referrals each month. The bulk of these referrals are for child rape survivors with an average age of five - eight years. The remaining referrals consist of children who have witnessed or been involved in criminal violence such as: car hijacking, armed robberies and assault, witnesses to the murder or attempted murder of a parent/s, victims of or witnesses to domestic violence, involvement in political violence; or children who have themselves been perpetrators of violence.
The work with children has necessitated developing new modes of therapy (which more adequately account for South African conditions), as well as much more family therapy and interventions within the schools environment. It has also become necessary to carry out longer-term child therapy, because the short-term model is not appropriate for more complex trauma and is frequently insensitive to the children's particular developmental stages. Another difficulty faced by the Child Therapy Unit has been that of language. The CSVR's child therapists have both been English speaking and have had to work predominantly through an interpreter. One of our volunteer counsellors worked in this capacity and will be employed on a full time basis from 1996.
Towards the end of 1995, our Child Therapy Unit began to assist at the Zamakuhle Clinic in Soweto. This is a Department of Health and Population Development clinic, targeted at providing a service for child abuse. Both the CSVR Child Therapist and Interpreter spend one full day per week at this unit, where they see children for therapy and assessment - both in groups and individually.
As noted above, the Child Therapy Unit has done extensive training in schools, at a local teacher training college, with the national SAPS Child Protection Unit, as well as in the Orange Farm Community Project. A pool of our volunteer counsellors was specially trained in child abuse awareness programmes, which have been offered in a number of schools.
Due to the enormous shortage of resources for children in the Gauteng Province, it is anticipated that the Child Therapy Unit will need to gravitate towards performing a consultative role and assisting with the training and education of other potential service providers - rather than merely aiming at constantly extending our direct service provision. Many of the programmes carried out by the Child Therapy Unit during the course of 1995, have already been in line with this objective.
It was intended to establish a satellite clinic in 1995, but this did not come to fruition due to excessive demands, shortage of personnel and difficulties experienced in recruitment. It is still intended to pursue this project, with the aim of commencing in June 1996. The satellite clinic will be based in an existing health clinic and will be aimed at servicing both adults and children who have been victims of violence and do not have access to our present service facilities.
One of the aims of this project is to enskill people within the particular community and we are planning to train volunteer counsellors from the area to operate in the clinic, which will still be under the supervision of the Trauma Clinic. It is envisaged that the Clinic will operate for one day a week in an initial six month pilot project.
In an attempt to make our counselling service more professional, it is planned to restructure the operations of the CSVR Trauma Clinic in 1996. This restructuring will include regular case conferences which will be aimed at various professionals working in the area, as well as the development of a "journal club" to enable us to keep abreast of current developments in the field of trauma. It is hoped that these forums will facilitate debate and new ideas and ways of working, specific to the South African context.
At present, we are investigating the possibility of registration of our full-time staff and volunteer counsellors with the International Society for Traumatic Stress. In order to register with this international body, certain counselling and training requirements need to be fulfilled which will ensure that we maintain recognised professional standards.
Another attempt to make the organisation more professional is by placing far greater emphasis on our own self care as counsellors. Due to the high demands on our service, there is a tendency to take on too much work and ignore the impact that the nature of this work has on our own mental health. It is therefore planned to have regular debriefing groups which will be facilitated by an outside counsellor who is skilled in trauma. Through this process, CSVR Trauma Clinic has already begun to develop a unique specialised expertise in the field of vicarious traumatisation of care-givers.
If the CSVR Trauma Clinic is to keep abreast of growing and changing demand for our services, then it is imperative that the Clinic recruits additional staff in the forthcoming year. This has become essential in view of the increasing referrals and training requests. From the beginning of January, there will be a full time translator who can assist the child therapist. A psychiatric nurse will also be employed to respond to the mental health needs of our clients and to work closely with Community Psychiatric services. The Clinic will need to raise funds for more full time clinicians to work in the Child Therapy Unit and to assist with the other counselling, training and supervisory tasks.
All of this recruitment will necessitate expansion of the Clinic's physical space and infrastructure. For example, it will be necessary to obtain basic medical equipment for the psychiatric nurse and more toys and equipment for the play room. The growing needs of the Clinic will tax to the limit available office space within the CSVR, and will demand a significant increase in budgetary allocations for rent, and operating costs.
The capacity of the Clinic will also be improved through recruitment of professional volunteers on a sessional basis. These include a movement therapist, a paediatrician and an art therapist. The Clinic is exploring ways of integrating these people into the service to make it a more holistic service.
It is planned to start a number of specialised therapy and support groups in the Trauma Clinic. The first of these will commence in April 1996 and will be a support group for families who have lost loved ones through homicide. The group will be a joint venture with a new organisation called Compassionate Friends. Other groups that are planned include a group for male crime survivors and a group for rape survivors who are HIV positive. It is believed that a group approach will be most beneficial in these specific sectors.
The relative lack of research generated by the Clinic remains an ongoing concern and is largely related to staff being overstretched and the capacity of the Clinic limited. However, in part, the restructuring of the Clinic will include allocating dedicated time for writing up research. A commitment has also been made to produce a number of multilingual booklets on various topics such as child abuse, domestic violence, child safety and the psychological impact of trauma. It is also planned to collate existing training workshops into manuals. This will be done in conjunction with the Education and Training Department of the CSVR.
In principle it is imperative that we increase our policy research output through documenting the work that is being carried out within the CSVR Trauma Clinic. This is a unique point of access to information which has not thus far been adequately utilised to develop new approaches and to inform policy decisions in areas of violence and crime. The Trauma Clinic's potential to assist in the development of victim-centered crime prevention programmes, as well as to generate policy and strategy for dealing with child abuse, is enormous but is presently not being adequately realised. A major initiative will be undertaken to maximise and realise our obvious potential in these areas in the course of 1996.
The past year has been a demanding one, with increasingly heavy client loads and other requests. Although these demands have placed much stress on staff, the Trauma Clinic team has remained dedicated and innovative in their response to the challenges.
As noted above, the Trauma Clinic has not realised its full potential in doing research or documenting our activities. This has primarily been due to time constraints and the limited resources and capacity of the Clinic. It is also essential that we translate our service delivery functions and action research into extended active lobbying and advocacy work with government and other NGOs. Despite this self-criticism, 1995 has seen the CSVR Trauma Clinic consolidate its work and profile in all these areas. As a result, without compromising its service excellence, the Clinic has established its credentials in the spheres of action research and policy formation, within both government and the private sector. We nonetheless remain ambitious about extending this work.
Another area of concern in the past year has been the need to sophisticate our approach to community outreach work. Through the Orange Farm Project, a number of new and valuable lessons were learned about how to approach community development work, reinforcing the importance of thorough consultation with key role-players and the establishment of clear expectations and effective communication amongst the stake-holders.
It became increasingly clear in the course of 1995 that the extent of community needs, coupled with the lack of effective services and community resources, can place an endless demand on our services. With this in mind, we have had to learn to prioritise our activities and limit the extent of our involvement in order to maintain our high standards of service. To this end, it is vital that in 1996 we re-define the roles of individual staff members and, in so doing, be more rigorous about how much and what kinds of activities the CSVR Trauma Clinic engages in. Perhaps of greatest importance, however, is our evaluation that the services we provide are indispensable and are wholly inadequate. It is our view that in the course of 1996 we will need to plan for the substantial expansion of the CSVR Trauma Clinic, in order to meet the legitimate demand of under-serviced impoverished South Africans. It will become imperative to raise additional and expanded resources from not only our traditional donors, but increasingly from the South African government and from the domestic corporate sector.
Despite these shortcomings, the Trauma Clinic regards 1995 as a positive and remarkably successful year. The Clinic has established a professional reputation and this is evident in the increasing number of referrals and training requests that we receive. The effective integration of the work of the Trauma Clinic within the CSVR as a whole, has resulted in a cross-pollination of ideas and approaches which has been mutually enriching for the Clinic and the other CSVR Departments. As a result, the unique work of the CSVR Trauma Clinic has gained an international reputation to match its recognition and achievements at the national level.
The CSVR has been centrally involved in the work and policy formulation surrounding the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) since late 1993. In June 1994 the CSVR made its first submission to the Ministry of Justice relating to the TRC and, since then, the CSVR projects relating to the TRC have continued to expand substantially. In many ways the end of 1994 signalled a new phase in the development of the project, as it moved from a largely policy-orientated programme, to one with several arms stretching across the areas of policy formation, research, education and training and direct support to survivors and families of victims of apartheid abuses.
In August 1994 the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department secured a commission from Justice in Transition (a Cape Town-based NGO) to coordinate the process of gathering information regarding victims of gross human rights violations across the country. The intention was to collate available records and present them to the TRC when it began. This, it was intended, would give the commission a substantial head-start as it began its quest to uncover and document the violations of the past, as well as helping it access victims in order to provide them with rehabilitative assistance. The project involved acquiring access to a multitude of records and files relating to abuses suffered by victims under the Apartheid era across the country. The majority of these records were held by NGOs, religious bodies and legal firms. In early 1995 a specialised database was developed in order to ensure that the information submitted to the TRC would be in a uniform format, as well as to assist in the process of verification and collation of a number of records.
To facilitate the development of this process and at the initiative of the CSVR, an inter-NGO working group was established in the Gauteng region. This grouping consisted of organisations which had traditionally documented and monitored human rights violations in South Africa. The group included The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), Human Rights Committee (HRC), Human Rights Institute of SA (Hurisa), Institute for a Democratic South Africa (IDASA), The Independent Board of Inquiry into Informal Repression (IBI), South African History Archives (SAHA), Sangonet, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and Peace Action. Under the co-ordination of the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department, this loose coalition began a national process of locating and documenting cases. In each region a further co-ordinating body was appointed, including the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (Kwa-Zulu Natal), Mayibuye Centre (Western Cape) and The Legal Resources Centre and the Human Rights Committee (Eastern Cape). This national NGO coalition became known as the Human Rights Documentation Project (HRDP), and the CSVR's Department must take much of the credit for the achievements of the HRDP.
The CSVR then developed a training programme and trained all the national organisations to use the database and input records. Some fifty volunteers were also trained to input data in the Gauteng region. The national training was completed by March 1995. The process of data-gathering then began and work continued until November 1995. At that time approximately ten thousand two hundred files had been documented, incorporating 4 100 events, 4 800 victim names and 1 300 perpetrator names. The December period was then used to finally collate the records and prepare the database for presentation to the TRC. The completed HRDP database was eventually submitted to the TRC early in 1996.
As part of the HRDP project the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department targeted the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) records as particularly important for the work of the TRC. The IDAF archive was established over a period of 30 years and provided an unique historical insight into human rights violations that occurred under Apartheid. The extensive records were housed in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. In March 1995 the coordinator of the Truth and Reconciliation Department undertook a research trip to investigate what was available and to evaluate the best way to get the archive back into South Africa. Agreement was reached for the return of the files to South Africa. In the latter half of 1995 the records were brought out to South Africa under the supervision of the CSVR. An incredible seven and half tons of records were deposited at the William Cullen Library at the University of the Witwatersrand. It was agreed that the CSVR Truth and Reconciliation Department of the CSVR would process the records and that once this had been achieved, the entire IDAF archive would be transferred to the Mayibuye Centre at the University of the Western Cape. Here the archive would become part of their extensive collection of historical material about the South African struggle for democracy. Processing work is due to begin in early 1996 and should be completed by October 1996.
As the Department began working with documenting human rights violations as well as in other areas relating to the TRC, direct contact with survivors and families of victims in need of social support became a regular feature of the Department's enterprise. Consistent with the CSVR Trauma Clinic's provision of counselling services to victims of violence, the Department began to focus on developing mechanisms for providing such support for traumatised victims of human rights abuse under Apartheid. The need for such psychological support for those going before the TRC, had already been anticipated and planned for in the CSVR's Annual Report of 1994. To achieve this, the Department focused on two particular areas in 1995, detailed below.
As early as February 1995 the Truth and Reconciliation Department began to develop a partnership with several victims who wished to testify before the TRC. This proved most fruitful in developing research and policy work which was informed by the experiences and perceptions of actual survivors. These survivors soon began to provide regular input into the projects of the Department. The first of these was in February 1995 when a group of survivors accompanied the Department in making a submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Justice in Cape Town. This submission concerned the removal of the secrecy clause from the National Unity and Reconciliation Bill which was to provide for the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
More specifically a researcher in the Department began to conduct research work in the area of psychological support and the need for victim assistance in Truth Commission processes. By March 1995 certain key areas had been isolated including amongst others: the need for briefing and de-briefing prior to and after testifying before the Commission; the training of TRC staff to deal with victims in a psychologically sensitive manner; and the need to establish sustainable survivor support groups. These ideas were consolidated into a research paper which was presented by the Psychological Services Coordinator of the Department at an international conference on Psychology and Peace in June 1995. This research was also translated into a more substantial paper presented at the CSVR Monthly Seminar Series in July 1995.
Furthermore, the need for a victim-centred mental health approach to the TRC was the object of much of the Department's lobbying within a range of forums concerned with the TRC and related policy development groups, throughout 1995. Importantly, this whole area of the CSVR's work was informed through a thorough analysis and evaluation of international research on similar Truth Commission enterprises in various countries around the world. This comprehensive research backing provided weight to all the submissions made to the various TRC working groups. In fact, it could be argued that the representation of mental health care workers on the Commission is largely due to the zealous campaigning by the CSVR for the psychological needs of victims to be taken into consideration during the processes of the TRC. This lobbying process was well under way by early 1995, and was based on the failure of other Truth Commissions to adequately address the issue.
However, in order for the needs of survivors to be taken into account and for comprehensive services to be provided when the TRC began, a national network of state and non-governmental psychological support service providers was needed. In 1995 there were several organisations operating in the country which were providing trauma counselling or other related services to victims of violence and human rights abuse. However, no formal national network existed and most networking was either informal or ad hoc in nature. To achieve the sort of coordination and networking necessary to meet the needs of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department decided to host a one day workshop to bring together the key social and psychological support providers across the country. Some 35 organisations (primarily from Gauteng, but with some national representation) were present at the workshop. This workshop spawned the development of a loose coalition of social service NGOs who were informed and eager to assist with social and psychological support to survivors during the tenure of the TRC. Sub-groups also developed out of the workshop with the strongest of these probably being a Victim/Offender Mediation Group, which has begun to develop a protocol for mediation services which may be necessary for the work of the TRC.
Importantly, the process of getting social service and mental health care workers together to co-ordinate a response to the TRC was also initiated (with assistance from CSVR) in other regions in the country, through the initiative of the Gauteng workshop. Similar workshops were held in October 1995 in Cape Town and in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The Kwa-Zulu Natal workshop was addressed by Brandon Hamber, the Psychological Services Coordinator of the CSVR Truth and Reconciliation Department. These national initiatives, and the Gauteng regional activities, began to lay a firm foundation for the incorporation of the concerns and expertise of social service and mental health care providers within the TRC process. As a result, by January 1996, completed submissions were made to the TRC by the CSVR, along with all our partners in the national and regional initiatives. It is our evaluation that these submissions and the strategic planning which informed them, has been of great assistance to the TRC and has impacted significantly in practically ensuring a victim-centred approach by the Truth Commission.
The Department's research into other Truth Commissions has revealed that victim-support groups are instrumental to the process of uncovering the past. They not only provide much needed psychological support to victims and survivors, but can also play crucial roles in shaping the final outcomes of commissions such as the South African TRC. For this reason, as early as August 1994, the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department mooted the idea of the establishment of such survivor support groups (see the CSVR Annual Report for 1994). It was perceived that these groups could serve as informal support structures for those who have suffered violence-related trauma or loss. By early 1995 such groupings began to develop organically as the prospect of a South African Truth Commission became a reality.
Because the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department had highlighted this as a key area of work from very early on, it was possible for us to raise some initial funds to publicise, facilitate and support the development of such victim support groups. The initial small support group established with the assistance of the CSVR developed rapidly over the first few months of 1995. It began with only ten or fifteen survivors, but grew rapidly as the year progressed. By the end of 1995 as many as one thousand survivors had been drawn into meetings at some point during the year.
Regular workshops were held for victims and survivors across Gauteng and were hosted by the CSVR. By May 1995 this was consolidated into the Khulumani Support Group (or Speak-Out Group) which had grown out of these workshops and had begun to function as an embryonic organisation. A core group of survivors, with representation from the CSVR, were elected onto a Steering Committee. In its capacity as the NGO representative, the CSVR provided organisational, secretariat, logistical and fund-raising assistance to the Steering Committee, which strategically guided the development of the groups.
In essence, the Khulumani Support Group became an organisation of survivors and relatives of victims of past human rights abuses in South Africa. The group consists mainly of indirect survivors (eg. mothers of "disappeared" sons) and direct survivors (eg. torture survivors) who intend testifying before the TRC. With assistance from the CSVR, the Khulumani Support Group's main function was to convene meetings about the TRC across Gauteng. This was done throughout 1995. These meetings performed several functions. They provided informal forms of support and self-help where victims could share experiences and support one another. They also served as an education forum about the TRC, assisted survivors and victims in preparing themselves for the process of testifying before the TRC, and they served as a referral source for additional social and psychological support, such as counselling, legal advice, medical referrals, etc.. Staff from the CSVR attended all the meetings so as to make the appropriate referrals.
The group also served an important lobbying function in terms of the TRC. Ultimately, Khulumani was a site for organisation so as to ensure that survivors interests would be met by the TRC. Submissions by the group to various key role-players in the TRC process were also undertaken. For example, a submission was made by the group on the reparations policy which the TRC will be responsible for formulating, and this was forwarded to the Minister of Justice even before the TRC was up and running. The content of this submission was generated by the discussions in the group and was facilitated by the CSVR and some of the more experienced group members.
To facilitate outreach and the expansion of the initiative, the Khulumani Support Group drew up a mission statement and the CSVR employed Tlhoki Mofokeng as a full-time field worker to assist in the development of the outreach capacity of the group. For this outreach initiative to occur effectively, extensive consultations were necessary with a range of community based organisations, church bodies and other field workers. The Truth and Reconciliation Department's field worker not only provided organisational support for the group but also consulted and informed community organisations about the survivor group process and helped them, if they so wished, develop such groups in their areas. The field worker also supplied information to community advice offices, churches and other community organisations about the TRC. The Khulumani Support Group met regularly in Johannesburg and, by December 1995, had expanded localised groups into Katlehong, Daveyton, Soweto, Mamelodi and the Vaal.
In late 1995 the Department also recognised the need for the establishment of a supportive network of community-based organisations if grassroots support for survivors - and the maintenance of Khulumani Support Groups - was to be functional and sustainable throughout the two years of the TRC and beyond. To this end, a one day workshop for community-based organisations was convened by the CSVR in December 1995. At this workshop basic information about the TRC was imparted to community-based workers and the basic foundations for a network were established. Follow-up to this workshop is imperative and is planned for 1996.
In terms of the future development of the Khulumani Support Group, towards the end of the year the CSVR increasingly focused on ensuring the independence and self-sufficiency of the group. To achieve this, increased skills development for members of the Steering Committee was considered essential. For example, it was imperative that Steering Committee members were empowered to run workshops themselves and were fully informed about the TRC without having to rely on the CSVR for this information. Plans were subsequently made to open a Khulumani Support Group advice office in early 1996 to service and assist Khulumani members, particularly in accessing the TRC and in making their submissions to it. The Truth and Reconciliation Department of CSVR assisted the group in drafting a funding proposal, and funding has been secured for 1996. Once the office is established, the CSVR will continue to assist the group through training the office staff (largely Khulumani Volunteers) and, through the CSVR Trauma Clinic's provision of social support services and counselling services where these are required.
In order for the TRC to be a success and for a collective acknowledgement of our past to be developed, the entire South African population is going to have to be informed and aware of the operations of the Commission. For this reason a range of educative materials was developed by the CSVR to inform survivors, families of victims, civil society and the general public about the TRC. In this regard, and because the victims of past violence are a primary constituency of the CSVR, much of the educative material produced by the CSVR was developed in conjunction with the Khulumani Support Groups. The materials developed in the course of 1995 include a twenty six minute educational video in which victims speak out about their expectations and wishes for the TRC, educational flip-charts for use in workshops, a trainer's manual, and an accessible comic which explains the objectives of the TRC in graphic and text form for the benefit of a semi-literate audience. An educational radio programme is also in the process of being developed and will go into production early in 1996. In the production of all these educational materials, the Truth and Reconciliation Department has taken the lead in developing a multi-media education and training capacity within the CSVR.
The support groups have had substantial input in shaping each of these educational tools. For example, the comic which was developed in conjunction with the StoryTeller Group was shaped and piloted through Khulumani Support Group workshops, thus ensuring that it tackled the key issues of concern, as well as guaranteeing its accessibility. A standard workshop format (eg. video, flip-charts, comic, etc.) was designed and used extensively with the outreach programme for the support groups and to educate victim forums about the TRC. Furthermore, the format was used in workshops with a range of NGOs, business groupings, media representatives and faith communities, in informing them about the TRC. This occurred on request both in Gauteng and across the country.
Towards the end of 1995 requests for the workshops had reached levels which made it impossible for the Department's team to meet every request. Requests continue to be received from a wide range of organisations and interest groups including cultural and artistic groupings focusing on the TRC, groups of journalists, specific faith communities, business organisations, various foreign donor agencies, and the South African Police Services. In 1996 the need for additional trainers needs to be seriously considered if these requests are to be accommodated.
The work with the SAPS demands special mention here as this is a key constituency which will be affected by the TRC. There is considerable opposition from the SAPS to the Truth Commission which is perceived to be a threat. However, whilst it is a thorny issue, the TRC actually presents a significant opportunity for rebuilding community/police relations and for distancing the SAPS as an institution from its history of human rights abuse. In particular, the legal and psychological and social support divisions have requested assistance from the Department, and it is hoped that this will result in positive interventions in the future.
Various faith communities and religious organisations have requested that the CSVR train several of their members to facilitate educative workshops on the TRC themselves. This has been undertaken and several trainers have been trained. The most serious limitation at this point is the availability of training materials for these trainers, due to the costs of reproduction.
The Truth and Reconciliation Department was initially established with a focus on policy and research work, and this focus was sustained throughout 1995. In early 1995 the Department made both written and oral submissions to the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee on Justice when the legislation establishing the TRC was being scrutinised. Submissions of various kinds (eg. the need for psychological services, etc.) were made to several task groups responsible for establishing the TRC throughout the year. One of the more extensive submissions was commissioned by Justice in Transition and was to provide a proposed "organogram" and operational matrix for the TRC when it was established. Two members of the Department and the Director of CSVR presented this proposed "organogram" along with motivations for the structure and function of the various arms of the Commission in Cape Town in mid 1995. This submission, based on an evaluation of other similar commissions, included a broad motivation for the regionalisation of the Commission and outlined the various functions of statement-takers, data-capturers, researchers, investigators and managers. Much of the basis of the submission seems to be poised to be adopted by the TRC.
The Department also published fairly extensively both in South Africa and abroad. This included both formal academic publications, as well as articles in local newspapers and journals. Academic papers produced focused on the legal debates surrounding the Commission and the areas of concern with regard to the psychological needs of survivors and families of victims. The Department was also commissioned to undertake research into the strengths and weaknesses of the Goldstone Commission with a view to examining the lessons for the TRC. A short-term contract researcher produced two extensive research works focusing on the role of investigation units and the potential of a witness protection programme; extracts of the works were later published in other journals and periodicals. Furthermore, due to the innovative work performed on the witness protection project, CSVR representatives sat on a task team established by the Minister of Justice to examine the feasibility of the establishment of a limited witness protection programme which would service the TRC; this would also develop the infrastructure for a future programme which would outlive the TRC itself.
Since its inception the CSVR has always maintained its role as an independent human rights organisation and the work with the TRC was considered within this framework. The Truth and Reconciliation Department has thus adopted a "critical partnership" approach to the TRC which provides the opportunity to assist the Commission with skills and expertise, but at the same time retain both independence and a capacity for constructive criticism. For the most part, the Department worked very constructively in helping to lay the foundations for the development of an effective TRC. However, on at least two specific occasions the CSVR had to play a more proactive lobbying role.
In this regard, the NGO Coalition developed to co-ordinate the HRDP project was also deployed as a lobbying forum. The first campaign involved the government's decision to have all amnesty hearings for the TRC behind closed doors. The coalition lead a campaign against the decision and held a highly successful press conference which received national and international coverage contributing to a reversal of the government's legislative proposal. Thirty one organisations co-signed the press statement released by the Director of the CSVR.
A further campaign sought to ensure that only those with a proven human rights track record were appointed to the TRC. Many organisations feared that appointments may be made based on political compromises or "horse trading", rather than on the basis of individual human rights records. A proposed transparent public selection procedure was submitted to the Minister of Justice and the coalition held discussions on the matter with him. The call from the coalition was not only publicly supported by President Mandela, but an open-public process similar to that called for was adopted.
Access to the commercial media was a particularly strong component of the CSVR's lobbying and advocacy orientation, as well as serving our public education objectives. The media interventions of the Truth and Reconciliation Department were remarkably extensive, with various members of the Department and the CSVR Director participating in many radio and television debates both locally and abroad. The CSVR became a key point of access for the print media as well, and various members of the CSVR staff were interviewed and quoted with great regularity in both local and international publications.
Overall, it is our evaluation that the CSVR professionalised and sophisticated its lobbying role in relation to the TRC. This has had broader ramifications for the Centre and for its other Departments, both due to the successful cooperative inter-NGO initiatives undertaken, as well as through the quality public profile which this has generated for the CSVR as a whole.
Besides the many educational workshops held by the CSVR, two particular workshops and a one day conference hosted by the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department in 1995 deserve special mention. The workshops were: - Dealing with the Past and the Psychology of Reconciliation: - A Mental Health Care Response to the TRC and Dealing with the Past: - A Community Organisational Response to the TRC. The one day conference held by the Department focused primarily on the legal and philosophical issues facing the TRC. The conference was entitled Truth or Justice? The TRC: Debates of Law and Morality and was attended by over a hundred delegates from NGOs, law firms, government and the faith communities and was highly successful in bringing the issues and debates about the TRC to the fore, shortly before it was established in late 1995.
The Truth and Reconciliation Department continued to expand throughout 1995 and extended into broader areas of work. By the end of the year the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department was ideally placed to further develop a range of initiatives both directly with the TRC and with other role-players in the process of transition and reconciliation in South Africa.
Throughout the year, actual service delivery (eg. victim support work, education for victims and survivors, etc.) continued to expand, forcing all members of the team to play a multitude of roles. These included acting as trainers, researchers and social activists at different times. This caused the Department to be over-stretched at times and unable to meet all the requests - particularly for education workshops on the TRC. However, the real achievements of the Department lay not in the ever increasing number of educational workshops offered, but in the creative development of sustainable educational initiatives through sophisticated and replicable multi-media educational materials.
Some of the capacity problems were relieved by the employment of a full-time field-worker to assist with the Khulumani Support Groups. Nonetheless, by the end of the year the need for additional staff was evident, particularly to back up the victim support groups and to enhance our capacity in both field-work and social support service delivery. Considerable research was produced in the first half of the year, although in the second half of the year fewer articles and papers were produced as Departmental members reached the limits of their capacity. This will have to be an area of focus in 1996 and the need for additional researchers is also apparent.
Inter-NGO cooperation was a feature of the year and the various inter-NGO initiatives (eg. lobbying, HRDP, etc.) proved to be most successful. Cooperative inter-NGO work served to consolidate relationships with several NGOs in Gauteng, forming powerful lobbies and demonstrating the ability of NGOs (even in a context of limited resources) to cooperate effectively in the interests of human rights.
In many other respects the Department's achievements and methodology were noteworthy. In particular, the Department secured a number of contracts to perform its work and was therefore able to continue to expand its activities even prior to securing additional donor support. The Department also maximised the use and value of integrating various disciplines into its focus on the TRC and this enriched our contribution significantly. The Department liaised effectively with other CSVR Departments in this endeavour and has contributed significantly to enhancing the profile of the organisation as a whole.
With the appointment of the Truth Commissioners in mid-December 1995, several key policy issues confronted the Department. A particularly critical issue was the potential that the TRC may "poach" some of the key staff from the Department. The newly formed TRC would have a need for skilled staff and the CSVR's Truth and Reconciliation Department was clearly viewed as a team of individuals who had developed a range of skills and expertise relevant to the TRC. By the end of the year it was already apparent that the Departmental coordinator, Paul van Zyl, would be recruited into a senior position by the TRC.
The organisational dilemmas which were consequently presented by this process are not uncommon and resonate with a general trend in which new governmental institutions have recruited many of the key staff members of NGOs. This issue is covered in more detail in the introduction to this Annual Report and will not be repeated here. However, this did present specific challenges to the Department in shaping future relationships with the TRC.
It has become clear that the Truth and Reconciliation Department of the CSVR (as well as other NGOs) will have to develop a greater consultancy function and consequent professionalisation in its operations if it is to maintain independence and win contracts from the TRC. Our objective is to sustain a "critical partnership" with the TRC allowing us to both assist the work of the TRC through sub-contractual arrangements, while at the same time ensuring our independence and an ability to constructively criticise and monitor the functioning of the TRC from an autonomous perspective. This will largely be dependent on the kind of relationships which the TRC establishes with NGOs - and it is currently unclear whether the TRC will sub-contract NGOs to assist with research, education, training, policy formation and psychological support services. If the TRC does not go this route, but instead seeks to "own" all these functions and run them internally, then it is likely that the Commission will need to recruit large numbers of staff from within the human rights NGO sector. The impact which this may have on the capacity of NGOs in this field could be a source of grave concern in the future.
The Department sees its future operations lying in four key areas. The first is continuation of the victim support work and assistance to the Khulumani Support Group. The Department will continue education work with victims and survivors and will ensure that the advice office operates effectively, as well as exploring further mechanisms for supporting the needs of victims - particularly at an individualised psychological level.
Secondly, the Department intends to continue with civil society-based education work about the TRC through NGOs, faith communities, industry and within specific constituencies such as the SAPS. The longer term vision would be not only to provide information workshops to these groupings, but with time to start developing more sophisticated forms of education. This would include focusing on curriculum design and development to build a human rights culture, through integrating the lessons and experiences of the past into education and training courses (eg. for community workers, police personnel, etc.) and translating them into multi-media educational tools (eg. books, video, interactive CD-ROM, etc.).
The third area of the Department's work relates to the clear role (in our view) for a "critical partnership" with the TRC. This will include shifting the NGO Coalition used to develop the HRDP into a focused lobbying and monitoring forum. At the same time, the Department intends to consult to the TRC and offer a range of support services to assist the workings of the Commission. This will include, for example, developing training programmes to train TRC staff (from the Commissioners themselves, to investigators and statement takers) with the necessary psychological skills for dealing with victims and survivors of trauma, policy research to assist the Commission where required, and assistance in setting up information-gathering systems based on our experience with the HRDP project.
The final sphere of the Department's work will be in the area of research. An ongoing evaluation of the TRC and the processes of reconciliation is imperative. Research which documents the process and which makes comparative analyses is also going to depend on sound research work generated by the Department over the coming two years.
Ultimately, the Truth and Reconciliation Department's plans for the next two years, are based on a vision of the TRC which is forward-looking rather than merely backward-looking. Our work during the two years of the Commission is really designed to facilitate a long term process of education, empowerment and human development, based on the utilisation of the TRC as a means for rebuilding the rule of law, engendering a human rights culture, reconstructing accountable and transparent state institutions and rehabilitating and restoring the dignity of the survivors of past human rights abuse. It is only if these objectives are served that the expenditure on the TRC will be justified and we will be able to claim that such abuses will never again occur in South Africa.
In its developmental phase, the initial fund-raising strategy of the Department was fairly ad hoc. Rather than the entire Department being funded, specific products or projects were sustained through short-term targeted funds/commissions. Much of the initial funding came through Justice in Transition (JIT), an NGO based in Cape Town. JIT funded the HRDP project and research work on witness protection and investigation teams, based on an evaluation of the Goldstone Commission. A short-term grant from the Irish Embassy also allowed for the employment of a psychological support services coordinator who supported the Khulumani process and support work for victims. Fonds voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking (FOS) generously provided a grant which was utilised in the production of the educational video and towards the end of the year grants were also received from Interfund and the Belgian Embassy. However, to sustain its work, the Department used its ability to win several commissions and re-invested the money in staff salaries. This approach was functional in the short-term, but needed to be replaced with a more extensive fund-raising strategy if the Department was to sustain its work and expand its staff complement over the next two years.
A more comprehensive fund-raising strategy was in place by mid-1995 and the proposal was circulated locally and abroad. By the end of 1995 several commitments for funds were forthcoming for the next two years. This includes further funding commitments from Interfund, from Oxfam UK&I, The Irish Embassy, South African Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. In all likelihood the Truth and Reconciliation Department should be able to operate successfully throughout 1996. Some of the above allocations will partially service the 1997 budget as well, but the Department will have to continue to raise funds if the Department's work is to be sustained throughout the life of the TRC and beyond.
It is our evaluation that the work of the Prisons Research Project during 1994, had a significant impact on correctional services during 1995. For the first time the value of community involvement in correctional services was acknowledged, and steps were taken to involve outside bodies in developing policy. This occurred mainly through the initiation of the Transformation Forum on Correctional Services (TFCS).
Tensions in prisons nonetheless persisted, both amongst prisoners and amongst members of the Correctional Services Department during the early part of the year. Gang violence within the prisons took on unprecedented levels, resulting in massive gang fights and orchestrated unrest in several prisons towards the end of the year.
Corrections policy, particularly the early release of prisoners, continued to occupy media and public attention, especially in the context of the abolition of the death penalty by the Constitutional Court. As a result of public criticism, parole conditions are likely to be tightened in 1996, and amnesties and early releases refused. This will impact on conditions in the already overcrowded prisons, and will be a potential obstacle for the implementation of new policies aimed at corrective measures for offenders. Popular concern and political pressure on government regarding correctional policy serves as an incentive to increased punitive rather than restorative systems of prison justice.
In this context, the Prisons Research Project was involved in a wide range of areas of work during the period under review.
The Prisons Research Project, together with the Penal Reform Lobby Group (PRLG), a consortium of NGOs, completed and released an Alternative White Paper on Correctional Services. This was a discussion document which critically evaluated the Department of Correctional Services' (DCS) policies and made recommendations for the overall and holistic transformation of correctional services. The major emphasis of the document lay in recommending external oversight of the prisons, greater transparency of the Department of Correctional Services, greater community participation in corrections, and due process protection for prisoners.
The Alternative White Paper was distributed to all stake-holders, NGOs, the DCS, and international organisations concerned with penal issues. This served as an important stimulus for debate and dialogue, and many of the recommendations are being investigated further by the TFCS. Whilst the Alternative White Paper represented an important policy initiative, popular pressure - combined with a residual resistance to civilian involvement in prisons policy formation from within the Ministry and the DCS - has limited the implementation of recommendations contained within the document. This suggests that such quality research needs to be accompanied by increased lobbying and advocacy work, both through public education, as well as within government circles.
In March 1995, the Prisons Research Project assisted in the organisation of a conference (together with the PRLG) on Civil Involvement in Correctional Services. The conference was organised by IDASA, and for the first time the collaboration of the Department of Correctional Services was secured. International and local speakers were invited to assist South Africans in the development of a practical concept of community accountability of the Department of Correctional Services and the conceptualisation of how communities can be involved in prisons. The conference attracted a large number of participants from different sectors, including religious, political, and service orientated organisations.
The outcome of the conference was the recommendation that a representative forum be established which would oversee the transformation of correctional services.
As a result of the key recommendation from the conference on civil involvement in correctional services, the Transformation Forum on Correctional Services (TFCS) was established. The TFCS consists of representatives from political parties, the DCS, the NGO sector, labour unions, and prisoner representative organisations. Both of the Prisons Research Project researchers - Amanda Dissel and Mongezi Mnyani - are members of the TFCS.
The TFCS was established to guide the process of transformation and democratisation of the DCS. Initially several sub-committees were formed to address problems dealing with: Human Resource Management; Physical Resource Management; Functional Area; Structural Area; and correctional services relationship with organs of civil society. However, it was later decided that the scope of the task was too great and the resources within the Transformation Forum too limited, to adequately deal with all these issues. Consequently, a smaller number of issues was identified by the Forum which continue to form the primary areas of attention. These priority issues identified included: human resources management as it related to the implementation of affirmative action; training and re-training of staff; community involvement in so far as it involved the development of a lay-visitor scheme and independent oversight; and policy development around the demilitarisation of the DCS. A number of projects were initiated to deal with these issues.
Both of the Prisons Research Project researchers are engaged in policy development, strategic planning and dialogue within the TFCS. As a research and policy unit, we have been able to contribute constructively and effectively to the debate and development of policies in the Forum. We are also the only organisation which can devote the major portion of our resources to the work of the Forum, and it is our evaluation that our contribution has been essential to the success of the TFCS.
In the forthcoming year the Prisons Research Project will be engaged in the following projects through the TFCS: the development of policy for the implementation of demilitarisation; development of channels for community involvement; and evaluation of various ad hoc proposals to the Forum. A specific project with which we will be involved, in collaboration with the PRLG and the TFCS, is a pilot project around human rights training for DCS members.
This Project was based on the identification of the need for greater community participation in correctional matters in the areas of policy development, oversight of the prisons, more effective service delivery, and community supervision of offenders. By initiating such a project, we hope to encourage the community to participate and thereby ensure that community stake-holders are properly informed about what is happening in the correctional services arena. We certainly hope that this process will help to facilitate improved communication channels with prison authorities, prisoners and the community. Our main objective is to assist in establishing some structures through which the Department of Correctional Services - together with the community - will be able to sit together and establish mutually beneficial forums for dialogue regarding matters of common interest for each specific local prison.
The goals of the project are:
To identify the needs of the local community with regard to prisons;
To identify the needs of prisoners with regard to the community; and
Amanda Dissel, the Coordinator of the CSVR's Prisons Research Project, participated in an IDASA-organised study tour of prisons in Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Senior officials of the DCS, parliamentarians, members of NGOs, and prisons-based employee organisations took part in the tour.
The tour was important in a number of respects. It assisted in the development and establishment of a working relationship between the DCS and other stake-holders, which proved to be crucial in the development of dialogue on important transformation issues, and went some way to further undermining institutional resistance to the involvement of civil society in correctional policy and practice. It also served as an opportunity for participants to be exposed to penal systems in other countries and to learn from those experiences.
After the tour, an evaluative research paper titled: Report on Correctional Services Tour to Denmark, The Netherlands and Britain was produced by the Prisons Research Project of the CSVR. Furthermore, the research trip demonstrated the value of such comparative evaluations and the lessons learned substantially informed the work of the Project in the period which followed.
Most of the CSVR Prison Research Project's research work was devoted to drafting policy documents for consideration by the Transformation Forum on Correctional Services. However, a number of additional research papers were produced and published. Amanda Dissel published a general piece on continuing problems in South Africa's prisons, and this was published in the Autumn 1995 volume of Crime & Conflict. The Project was also responsive to short-term issues which attracted popular attention and at short notice another paper was written by Mongezi Mnyani which considered different penal options in the light of the abolition of capital punishment by the Constitutional Court, and presented at the CSVR's Monthly Seminar Programme at the end of June 1995. A further joint research project was undertaken which explored issues of policy and practice in developing sentencing options in South Africa. This project resulted in the production of a research paper which was published by the Social Justice Resource Project at the University of Cape Town's Institute of Criminology. Finally, through its policy research, the Prisons Research Project also made important contributions to the White Paper on Welfare. This work was related to the supervision of offenders on probation and on policy relating to correctional supervision.
Despite the CSVR's innovative and creative approach to prisons issues, this remains a difficult sphere of our reconstruction and reconciliation work. Institutional resistance within the DCS, combined with - at best - the haphazard support for prisons reform from within the Ministry of Correctional Services, as well as popular conservatism in preference for punitive justice at a time of rising crime, all make the implementation of policy initiatives in this field very difficult.
Although it is therefore difficult to claim any easy victories, the research and policy perspectives developed by the Prisons Research Project have already gone a considerable way to establishing an evaluative yardstick for scrutiny of correctional services in South Africa. Furthermore, the key initiative in building inter-NGO cooperation in this field will necessarily strengthen the impetus for prisons reform in the coming years. Strong cooperation of this sort has been a key objective of the Project and, along with our partners in this endeavour, has been successfully achieved.
A key challenge which faces the CSVR's Prisons Research Project in the coming years is the need to translate this quality research into effective lobbying and public education. Popular attitudes to the role and efficacy of prisons, as well as to sentencing policy, if unchanged, will remain a key source of political pressure on governmental policy makers, and will therefore contribute to resistance to changes in traditional methods and practices. Without such change, it is extremely likely that the prisons in South Africa will continue to operate as "universities of crime" and will consequently do more to compound burgeoning crime in South Africa than to solve the problem.
Indeed, at the policy level, it is critical that in the face of escalating crime, the criminal justice system must operate as an integrated entity with consistent policy formation across Policing, Justice and Department of Correctional Services. This demands that correctional services policy formation and research is increasingly integrated with that being undertaken within the justice and policing realms. Rehabilitation of offenders has been an under-developed area of work which is critical to prisons policy and to dealing with crime more generally. The relationship between gang formation in prisons and the operation of criminal gangs and syndicates within the community also demands greater attention. So too does the pervasive issue of corruption which dominates public perceptions about policing and correctional service institutions.
The CSVR is uniquely placed to undertake some of these tasks and to pursue these perspectives in the years ahead. The close working relationship between our Prisons Research Project and our Policing Research Project means that we are well placed to begin developing an integrated policy approach, especially when combined with the work of the CSVR Trauma Clinic in dealing with the needs of victims of crime. The opportunity presented to maximise this potential is the central policy challenge which faces the Prisons Research Project in 1996 and 1997.
The positive potential and positioning of the Prisons Research Project in the above respects, therefore makes it imperative that further funding is secured for this project and for the development of an integrated criminal justice policy unit at the CSVR in the years ahead. The Project currently has secure funding until the end of 1996, largely through the generous donations of the Royal Danish Embassy and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
However, longer term funding is essential to maintaining and developing the impact of this invaluable project. Such ongoing commitments to funding will have to be secured in the course of the coming year if we are to operationalise the vision outlined above.
Although most of the impact of the Project was through the TFCS, the Project intends to continue with independent policy work. Key policy areas involve institutional transformation, particularly in relation to staff training; organisational structure and institutional change. We also envisage assisting in the re-writing of key legislation, and in making policy recommendations for control mechanisms in the DCS.
Through the Transformation Forum, we have initiated a pilot project training members of the DCS in Human Rights and the implications of the Constitution for correctional services. We also anticipate that we will be involved in further policy work with the TFCS around such issues as independent oversight of the prisons; demilitarisation; unit management; and community involvement.
Our work in relation to establishing links between the community and the prisons will continue. This is a difficult task as community interest in relation to the rights of prisoners and the conditions pertaining to prisons is low. We therefore anticipate the need to continue building a closer working relationship between the prisons and the local communities - some of which have already been established. A report will be compiled outlining this process and evaluating some of the successes and difficulties confronted by this project.
Finally, it will be necessary to develop an integrated approach to criminal justice in the year ahead. This means that prisons reform work will have to be better integrated into crime combatting and crime prevention approaches and a more substantial interface with government will have to be achieved at this level. Furthermore, it will be essential to develop a more integrated approach from within the CSVR as well, and this may entail establishing a Criminal Justice Policy Unit within the Centre, which combines and rationalises the work of both our Prisons Research Project and our Policing Research Project.
Over the past four years the work of the Policing Research Project (PRP) has represented one of the most striking and innovative interventions of the CSVR. Having been one of the first NGOs to enter this arena and having played a significant role in breaking the back of institutional resistance to civilian involvement in policing policy formation, the CSVR's Policing Research Project played a vital role in stimulating the development of a national network of NGO agencies involved in policing policy formation and training. These historical successes were in no small part due to the particular contribution of Janine Rauch who was the coordinator of the Policing Research Project during this period.
It is ironic that our very success in this sphere has presented some of the greatest challenges to sustaining this work. In particular, the recruitment of key staff who have taken posts in government has thrust upon the PRP the continual challenge of rebuilding the capacity necessary to meet the demand placed on our services. After Janine Rauch was employed as Director of Policy in the national Ministry of Safety and Security in mid-1994, Melanie Lue was trained to replace her as PRP Coordinator. In early 1995, Melanie left the CSVR to take up a post in the Investigative Task Unit in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Sylvester Rakgoadi was in turn promoted and trained as the new coordinator. By the end of the year, however, Sylvester had applied for the position of Deputy Director of Policy in the Gauteng Safety and Security Ministry - a position to which he was duly appointed in early 1996. In addition, Monique Marks, who was employed as a researcher in the Department in late 1994, took a new post at the University of Natal (Durban) at the end of 1995 and was also lost to the CSVR. Fortunately, towards the end of the year, Duxita Mistry was recruited as a researcher in the Policing Research Project.
In the context of burgeoning NGO involvement in policing work, recruitment of replacement staff for these key positions has proved extremely difficult and this has severely affected the profile and capacity of the Department. Furthermore, it is our evaluation that the constant demand placed on the PRP for education, training and implementation services, has consumed much of the capacity of the Department, with the result that too little time and capacity has been left for the innovative research which has historically underpinned the CSVR's successes in this arena.
Nonetheless, the CSVR's Policing Research Project made a number of crucial contributions in the course of 1995. Included amongst these, on behalf of the CSVR, Graeme Simpson made a submission to the Theme Committee Number Six of the Constitutional Assembly, which was considering the impact of the constitution on policing practice and principles in South Africa. The lobbying and advocacy role of the CSVR and the PRP was not merely limited to this level of intervention, but saw the organisation adopt a high profile in relation to unfolding popular hysteria about the levels of crime in South Africa. The CSVR remains ideally placed to develop integrated and comprehensive policy around policing and crime prevention.
However, the need to re-build the PRP's capacity (and particularly its research capacity) is a priority for the coming year. But this is easier said than done, especially due to the non-competitive salaries which we are able to pay, as well as the limited funds which have been committed to this Department. For this reason, it appears that it will be necessary to rationalise and consolidate the CSVR's work in this sector, potentially incorporating our policing and prisons work into an integrated "Criminal Justice Policy Unit". This potential will be evaluated and considered in the course of 1996.
Sustained work in the field of community policing remained one of the primary activities of the PRP during 1995. One of the central tasks, was the completion of the Gauteng Community Policing Project which was initiated in 1994, aimed at the establishment of Community Police Forums (CPFs) at every police station in the province. Part of the focus was on conducting workshops in those areas where CPFs did not exist, especially in black township communities such as Evaton and Sharpeville in the Vaal, and Bekkersdal and Kagiso on the West Rand. The process of writing up the entire enterprise proceeded in the meanwhile, and was completed in the last few months of 1995; the report should be published in early 1996. This entire project was a particularly impressive illustration of the potential for creative and productive inter-NGO cooperation - the establishment of CPFs across the Province was essentially a product of this joint venture between the CSVR, IDASA, IMSSA and the Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre.
The analytical products of the Community Policing Project made it abundantly clear that the establishment of the CPFs could not be romanticised. Problems over community representation, control over CPF meetings, etc. clearly demonstrated that in order for the CPFs to be sustainable, follow-up capacity building and training work would have to be undertaken. The information from the Gauteng Community Policing Project Report was utilised to strategise the follow up capacity-building training which was then initiated. The policy issues outlined in the Report were also fed to the provincial Ministry of Safety and Security, as well as into the legislative process in the development of the Police Act. It is our evaluation that the Community Policing Project continued to produce valuable research and policy interventions, at the same time as serving to develop and facilitate the practical development of CPF functioning in several areas. The Project has also played a key role in shaping the content of the forthcoming CPF capacity-building programme which is to be developed in 1996.
The PRP was also involved in several activities closely related to our community policing work. Based on the finding of the Gauteng Community Policing Project Report that community constituencies needed to be properly educated if they were to participate meaningfully in the CPFs, the Department ran several training workshops with women's organisations, as well as with children in schools - through the access created by the CSVR's Youth Department. It was evaluated that these workshops were essential to moderating the influence of various political parties in the CPFs, as well as to overcome the tendency of the SAPS to dominate these forums.
The PRP also initiated an independent procedure to monitor developments within the CPFs, with a specific view to the capacity building enterprise planned for 1996. Members of the PRP team regularly attended CPF meetings in order to monitor progress of these forums and feed the information back to the Office of the MEC for Safety and Security in Gauteng. On occasions too numerous to mention here, CSVR staff were called upon to mediate and facilitate in these meetings.
Finally, the CSVR's PRP, along with Wits University Business School's Public and Development Management School, also held a successful review conference to evaluate the developments within the CPFs thus far. Participants included members of the CPFs, the SAPS, the Ministry of Safety and Security, as well as several other NGOs. An evaluative policy document based on the proceedings of the conference was produced.
As noted in the 1995 half-yearly report, this project is a spin-off of the work done within the CSVR on the evaluation of basic training in the SAPS. The TEG Project was serviced by a multi-national implementation team - drawn from various commonwealth countries - which is to make recommendations in regard to police training to the national Minister of Safety and Security. These recommendations will include the area of curricula review, which is currently being handled by the Technikon RSA. Sylvester Rakgoadi has been contracted on behalf of the CSVR to work on the TEG Project.
This programme is based upon two central components: evaluation of Police College-based community policing training; and field training at the police stations. In respect of the latter, workshops were conducted at over 48 police stations in Gauteng, and approximately 180 police stations nationally. However, much of the CSVR's work in the first half of 1995 revolved around field observation and evaluation of police training colleges. This evaluation was done through observation, as well as interviews with both students and trainers at these colleges.
Once again the TEG work has been based on successful joint programmes run by several NGOs, Universities and institutions. A full report on both Police College training and station-based training is due to be submitted to the TEG by the end of March 1996. However, the work done on the evaluation of basic police training, has already resulted in some recommendations being made for proposed changes which need to be made before the next intake for basic training in January 1996.
This project, based in the Policing Research Project and linked to the CSVR's Youth Department, was initiated to contribute to the process of demobilising and reintegrating Self-Defence and Self-Protection Units (SDUs and SPUs), as well as other militarised youth groups, into the mainstream of society. A broad range of workshops was held by CSVR staff, attended by various "militarised youth" groupings, representatives of the Ministries of Safety and Security and Education, as well as NGOs involved in youth work. The workshops aimed at ascertaining the needs of these youths and resulted in the compilation of several research reports. These reports dealt with: an assessment of the needs and aspirations of these militarised youths; an evaluation of the relationships between the SDUs, SPUs and the SAPS; and the potential role of the RDP in these respects.
The policy research generated has been utilised by the Ministries of Safety and Security and Education in joint planning and in formulating a policy on the future of these youth groupings. The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was contracted to assist these Ministries in further research in this area.
This project was successful in initiating a strategy for provincial government to begin dealing concretely with the needs of militarised youth. However, we do not intend to continue with this work in the forthcoming year as Monique Marks, our principal researcher in this area has left the organisation and further funds for the project have not been forthcoming.
As a result of our historical relationship with the South African police trade unions - particularly our ongoing work with them in relation to the transformation of policing institutions - we were requested on several occasions to deal with labour concerns raised by the two main unions: The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU); and The South African Police Union (SAPU). The initial concerns highlighted by these unions revolved around issues of discrimination within the SAPS (based on sex, race, ethnicity and language). A project was developed whereby the PRP assisted the unions in addressing the issues of discrimination in the service. We also assisted the unions in a capacity-building enterprise, in order to enable them to engage constructively with the SAPS in respect of unfair labour practices or discrimination, as well as other related labour issues. Perhaps of greatest significance is the role which the PRP played in facilitating dialogue and contact between these two police labour unions.
Several research papers were compiled dealing with the processes and mechanisms in the SAPS labour relations sphere. One such area which was tackled and which bears specific mention, was stress factors and stress management within the SAPS. A workshop was offered on stress and stress management for police officials, to which there was an overwhelmingly positive response. The CSVR Trauma Clinic has assisted in this area and it is our intention to further develop and follow up with this particular focus in the course of 1996.
The PRP was also engaged in lobbying work on behalf of the unions with regard to police regulations and legislation pertaining to labour relations, making submissions to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Safety and Security in this respect. It is our evaluation that we played a significant role in seeking to ensure that the police service be incorporated under the new Labour Relations Act - from which they had initially been excluded.
A research paper was written by Monique Marks and Naseera Ali (one of the CSVR research interns) outlining the history of labour relations in the South African Police Services. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only such written research which has been produced in South Africa on the subject. Two additional research papers were compiled specifically for use by the police trade unions, dealing with debates on community policing and on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) respectively. This latter paper has assisted SAPU in formulating their policy in support of the TRC.
The CSVR Annual Report for 1994, noted that "it is imperative to further develop the focus on institutional reform within the SAPS, based on the information obtained through the PWV Community Policing Project". Pursuant to this objective, one of the aims of the PRP for 1995 was to engage in the development of a human rights culture within the SAPS.
With a clear view of the institutional impact likely to result from effective human rights education within the police, the National Human Rights Education Forum was set up with representatives from various NGOs, provincial officials of the SAPS, academics from various institutions and human rights practitioners in the field. A vision statement for the National forum was drawn up by these participants and a series of specialised sub-committees were also established. Funding for the human rights programme was then sought from the RDP by the SAPS, and a business plan developed to access this funding.
The forum was tasked to build human rights education throughout the SAPS. The aim of the programme was to provide such education for all members of the SAPS on the basis of a three year programme. It was planned that there would be three distinct levels of training provided:
Basic Education Course on Human Rights
The target audience for this training was identified as being all the members of the SAPS, as well as members of the CPFs - approximately 250 000 people. The proposed method of training was via interactive educational workshops. It was also envisaged that after an initial three year period, this course would be integrated into the SAPS basic training programme.
Advanced Human Rights Training
This course was to operate as a