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CASE has been functioning as a community-based organisation that has been working in Hanover Park since 2001. CASE is now being formalized and registered as a voluntary association and an NPO as of 2005. CASE started by training 30 parents as volunteer trauma counsellors, and setting up 14 trauma support rooms at each school in Hanover Park.
Through crisis management and trauma counselling, survivors of violence have been able to work through the psychological effects of violence. The result has proven to be sustainable over the last four years. The trauma support room model has since been replicated in 3 other communities in the Western Cape. One of our key objectives is that our projects must be community driven, thereby ensuring a sense of ownership.
Another objective is developing partnerships with other organisations and agencies in order to achieve our goals. The mission of CASE is to seek to break the cycle of crime and violence in which young people live by equipping community members to recognise and respond appropriately to both the causes and effects of crime and violence in their communities. CASE works with children and youth directly, their parents and families, schools, the police and supports other community workers.
The Need The challenges facing South Africans include unemployment, poverty, limited health care and education resources, and violence. Violence is perhaps the most worrying as it has filtered into the most private places in society — the home and the family — and is having a devastating impact on individuals, families, schools and neighbourhoods. The social and interpersonal violence affecting children and teenagers is reaching endemic proportions.
Crisis intervention cannot address the underlying causes or the larger scale consequences of living within a violent society. Pro-active intervention strategies, developed and implemented in collaboration with communities and relevant agencies, are urgently required.
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