Hi, I'm Jessye Lapenn, The
Chargé d'Affaires at the
U.S. Mission in South
Africa, and the host of our
web series, Meet the
AlumnU.S. In this series, I
have the chance to travel
the country, and meet
amazing South African alumni
of U.S. government sponsored
exchange programs. Today
I'm in East London, at the
Masimanyane Women's Rights
International Center, and I
am here with it's founder
and Executive Director,
Dr. Lesley Ann Foster . Lesley
Ann is an alum of the U.S.
government's International
Visitor Leadership Program,
or IVLP. Hi Lesley, thanks
for joining us.
Thank you very much Ms. Lapenn,
it's very good to have you,
and we are very excited to have
you with us today.
Tell me a little bit about
Masimanyane and the work that
you're doing.
Well it's an honor to have you,
thank you so much.
I think all of us at
Masimanyane really
appreciate your taking time
out to be with us.
Well, Masimanyane started off in
1996 as a small
organization. At at the time
there were no resources in
East London to support
women. So we started off
thinking it would be a
little support group,
really. That was the idea.
So we also started to work
with the Minister of Justice
at the time, Dullah Omar,
and he was instrumental in
actually coming to train us,
on issues of human rights,
and then we became much more
aware of the fact that there
was a lot more to the work
that we thought we would do,
than we were actually doing.
I understand your mother
also was an alumni. Yes. My
mom had enormous networks
and partnerships that came
out of her visit. I built
Masimanyane on my mom's
health networks, so that was
why our organization
actually grew the way it did.
I spent five weeks I think it
was in the U.S. Meeting
different
organizations, working, and
mine was 'women and politics'
actually,
so there was a whole group of
women from around Africa,
which in itself was very
powerful because we learnt
of different experiences
that women were having. We
actually formed a
partnership with a group in
Massachusetts, and through
that partnership we got
direct exposure to responses
to HIV and AIDS, and GBV in
actual fact. So in a way the
program helped us to really
think differently about our
work, to be able to also
increase our responses, and
to refine our responses
rather than increase them.
As a leader, as a women
leader, as an organization,
how are you thinking right
now about the challenge of
gender-based violence in
South Africa? We are in the
process now of working on
responses to that. Some of
it is political, you know,
talking to their local
government people about the
unsafe spaces that women are
exposed to. Looking at
policy changes, but mainly
also having the right kind
of support services for women
out there.
Thank you so much, such a
pleasure to
be with you, and to hear
about the work that
Masimanyane is doing, but
also how the IVLP experience
was an important part of that.
Yes.
Thank you.
No, thank you.
