The Justice Desk is an award-winning human rights organisation, which operates in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Our organisations purpose is to advocate, educate and equip in the area of Human Rights, Justice and Advocacy. We also assist those most vulnerable by offering them much needed resources, support and volunteers. We are an official Queens Young Leader’s Organisation under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2018, The Justice Desk launched The Mbokodo Club (The Rock Club) with its motto “wathint’abafazi wathint’imbokodo” which translates to “you strike a woman; you strike a rock”, in the Nyanga Township. Nyanga is one of the oldest townships in Cape Town but also known as the murder capital of South Africa. It has the highest sexual offense cases of women and girls.
The Mbokodo Club project falls under our Bridging Department. This Department focuses on offering various empowerment projects which aim to empower communities from within. They focus on community enrichment initiatives that is offering the opportunity for a diversity of individuals from different walks of life, the space to connect and find common ground and a common humanity.
The Justice Desk partnered with Kings Boxing Gym, an organisation that provides a free community boxing training programme for kids between the ages of 6 and 18 years old.
The girls from The Mbokodo Club attend gym sessions regularly, as well as bimonthly Female Empowerment Workshops.
The project consists of two components:
1. Girls are equipped with self-defence classes in order to protect themselves when in harm’s way.
2. Girls engage in female empowerment workshops that focuses on encouraging and motivating the young girls to reach for their dreams and work hard to achieve their goals. These workshops focus on consent, self-esteem building, goal setting, sexual health rights (menstrual care), support groups and many others.
Self-defence and self-care are promoted, through equipping young girls to be able to defend themselves and to live empowered lives. Girls and women face a lot of discrimination. There are so many vulnerable girls whose voices are not heard. They are denied justice because they have no money and no platform. We need to use our voices not just for ourselves, but for all of them!
So far, our sessions have gone phenomenally. Our girls have increased their fitness levels, and self-defence ability. Our female empowerment workshops are equipping our girls to build their self-esteem, confidence and public speaking skills. We can’t wait to see how this project continues to grow, and thank all our volunteers and girls for giving their all! Watch this space!