SIMA ACCOMPLISHED PROJECTS

Sishen Iron Ore Community Trust (SIOC) partnered with loveLife to establish youth centres in Gamagara Local Municipality in Northern Cape and Thabazimbi Local Municipality in Limpopo. The established youth centres adopted loveLife’s model which embraces young people’s well-being through well-coordinated, community participation, primary health care, education, and other development services. SIMA conducted an impact evaluation to assess whether the objectives of the interventions resulted in the expected impact on the young people.

In Partnership with the National Department of Health (NDOH), loveLife has continued to advance interventions that focus on HIV prevention (new infection) and promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR), and Active Lifestyles throughout South Africa. In order to increase the uptake of health services among the adolescents and young adults, loveLife partners with NDOH to implement a Youth Zones programme. Youth Zones are reserved spaces at primary health centres (clinics) where young people are attended to separately from adults when they visit facilities for SRHR and HIV related services. They are run by trained nurses (youth champions) and supported by loveLife volunteers (groundBREAKERS). SIMA undertook an impact evaluation to determine the impact of the Youth Zones program interventions.

Lovelife’s programs aim to deliver appropriate evidence-based health interventions to ensure optimum positive health outcomes for all young people aged between 10 to 24 years, both school and non-school going in South Africa.This evaluation focused on the Adolescent and Youth Health (AYHP) and Active Lifestyle (SRSA) programmes. These two programmes were mainly funded by government with the AYHP supported by the NDOH while the ALP supported by the National Department of Sports and Recreation (SRSA). SIMA undertook an impact evaluation.

The Olifants river basin is one of the most polluted river systems in South Africa. Apart from the mining and agricultural activities that are seen as the major pollutants of the Lower Olifants sub-basin, there are other localized activities that contaminate water sources. Community activities such as dumping of solid waste in streams (such as used nappies, used sanitary pads, construction, and other household waste), the release of sewage into the rivers, and siltation caused by overgrazing among others are major contributors to the pollution of water sources within the localized level.

Funded by the USAID Resilient Waters Program, the training aimed at increasing the knowledge and understanding of communities on how community practice contributes to water source pollution. Communities were equipped with tools, approaches and methods for water source protection, Waste management at community including recycling and Wetland protection and restoration. Furthermore community-based action plans are developed by communities.

SIMA’s Community Facilitators conducted the community training in all the 14 Wards of Maruleng Municipality. The training was implemented in collaboration with Maruleng Municipality and together with the various stakeholders including traditional/tribal authorities, Ward Development Committees, Community Policing Forums, Traditional Healers Organization (THO), schools, youth organizations, churches as well as small business owners. A total of 4,494 community members were trained and 23 action plans developed by the community members.

Daily, Sex Workers are stigmatized and discriminated against, beaten up, raped, and harassed by law enforcement agencies and in most cases are denied access to basic health facilities and legal support services. In the broader South African Context, Sex Work is still illegal and is regarded as a criminal offence by the justice system and the municipality-by-laws. The Municipality by laws have a provision that prohibits sex work, that is, “importuning any person for the purpose of prostitution” and “soliciting”. This is full evidence that sex workers have no legal protection in South Africa.

SIMA was engaged by AFSA to facilitate a Dialogue on Human Rights Violations faced by Sex Workers in Buffalo City Municipality (BCM). This included conducting a one-day preparatory workshop for Sex Workers to strengthen their capacity to advocate and defend their human rights on public platforms and against human rights abuses. This dialogue focused on Sex workers as a Key and Vulnerable Population.

Research has shown that a number of human rights- and gender-related barriers have a compounding effect on the spread of HIV, TB and STIs, increasing vulnerability and hinders access to services. These barriers include stigma (including self-stigma), discrimination and human rights violations against people living with HIV, people with TB and key and vulnerable populations. SIMA was appointed by AFSA to develop training material for Stigma and Discrimination of HIV, TB & STIs using a Rights-Based Approaches to Community Mobilisation. This was followed by a five-day Master training for 40 participants drawn from the 25 Global Fund Human Rights Districts.

In the wake of COVID 19, and the subsequent virtual working, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and other labour federations’ ability to work online was brought into question. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), therefore sought for a consultant to strengthen the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure of COSATU to facilitate their online communication. SIMA was therefore appointed by ILO to assess the COSATU ICT infrastructure and how it supports its business continuity prescripts, mandate, mission and vision. The main purpose of the assessment was to strengthen the ICT infrastructure of COSATU and its provincial offices in order to facilitate their online communication.

Following the successful COSATU ICT infrastructure assessment, SIMA was then appointed by ILO to implement the recommendations of the report. The COSATU ICT infrastructure improvement project aactivities included Network Infrastructure improvement, Workstation Upgrades, Server and Server room upgrades, Data Backup and Restore Strategy and Asset register upgrade, cabling (including installation of fibre cables). Other activities included repair of the video conference repair, installation IP security system, and upgrade of the press room.

SIMA provided M&E technical support to Gugu Dlamini Foundation in the implementation of Masiphephe Programme in Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (INK) area in eThekwini North Central. The three communities have one the highest GBV cases in the country with Inanda dubbed the ‘Rape Capital of SA. The Masiphephe Network funded by USAID works towards reducing vulnerability to Gender Based Violence (GBV) and strengthening community and local governance GBV prevention and response.

Soul City together with its partners FIXED, Gugu Dlamini Foundation (GDF), Safetipin, eThekwini Municipality and SANTACO implemented a Taxi driver’s GBV sensitization training pilot project in eThekwini. The aim was to make sure the taxi industry especially taxi ranks are safer for women and void of GBV. SIMA was then appointed to develop training material and train eThekwini Taxi drivers on Gender Based Violence.

SIMA was appointed by Graca Machel Trust to develop a resource mobilisation strategy for the Gender Transformation Regional Seed System (GTRSS) project implemented in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Aimed to increase the participation, influence, and control of women in the seed production value chain by establishing 1000 local agro-dealerships, 10,000 smallholder farmer seed growers, and 100 seed companies.