Location of Provincial Office:
4 Buitensingel Street
Cape Town
8001

Postal Address:
P O Box 10034
Cape Town
8000

Tel + 27 (0)21 422-1690
Fax: + 27 (0)21 424-6879
E-mails: jo@prov.nicro.co.za

Services Points

Established as the Cape Town branch in November 1910, the third to be launched, NICRO Western Cape offers projects and programmes throughout the province involving 30 local municipal areas, approximately half of which are located in rural areas. We are deeply committed to ensuring that our interventions are accessible to our client base, and have made great inroads in distributing services more equitably, both culturally and geographically.

Community Victim Support

The Community Victim Support Programme, which has a staff complement of eight permanent service deliverers and over 50 active volunteers, currently operates from the NICRO Women’s Support Centre in Cape Town, the NICRO Mitchells Plain Office, the Magistrate Courts in both Atlantis and Mitchells Plain, and in Beaufort West.

Our Niche and Special Achievements

• Comprehensive, impactful victim support interventions including individual counselling services - with a specific focus on victims of rape and domestic violence - trauma counselling and debriefing;
• Specialised psycho-educational, therapeutic group-work programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence;
• Very successful and impactful court-based witness support services affording witnesses access to justice and support throughout the legal process operating from the courts in Atlantis and Mitchells Plain;
• Boarder-based court support services at domestic violence and family courts;
• A holistic approach to domestic violence prevention, including the Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programme, direct services to victims, and support services to families exposed to domestic violence;
• Community education and awareness programmes, and increased lobbying, advocacy, networking and profiling efforts have gained NICRO Western Cape’s victim support services ever-increasing respect in the Western Cape;
• Rural models of intervention to address the needs of rural communities and provide services where they are most needed;
• Given its broad-based knowledge, capacity and skills NICRO Western Cape is increasingly rendering training capacity building services to communities and service providers active in the field.

The vast majority of beneficiaries of our victim support services are female members of African Coloured communities in the 30 to 39 year age group. Domestic violence continues to be the overriding challenge with which these communities are faced.

Diversion and Youth Development

The Diversion and Youth Development Programme has the widest spread of NICRO Western Cape’s services and is offered in all 30 local municipal areas in which the organisation operates. One of the most pleasing developments has been the notable expansion of service delivery to rural areas. Some 34.4% of diversion services are rendered to young offenders from the Cape Flats, while 42.8% are offered in rural and other areas beyond Cape Town.

The Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), an eight-week life-skills programme for first time young offenders, remains the most utilised Diversion option followed by Pre-Trial Community Service. Some 61% of all young beneficiaries who are diverted away from the formal criminal justice system become YES Programme participants, while about 34% serve the community they have wronged, rather than appearing in court. In the past twelve months communities in the Western Cape benefited directly from well in excess of 50,000 hours of community service.

NICRO’s Diversion Programme has proven to be a highly effective and successful intervention for challenging criminal and delinquent behaviour, which results in young people conforming by acknowledging, understanding and taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Fewer than 10% of programme participants re-offend within a three-year period of completing a NICRO Diversion option.

Economic Opportunities

The Economic Opportunities Project equips its clients with the skills, tools and support for economic re-engagement or to start their own micro enterprises in the informal sector. In addition to job creation and placement, business skills development services are provided. Entrepreneurial training is complemented by comprehensive non-financial as well as financial support services. These services are all geared towards securing employment for clients, developing and improving micro enterprises, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and ultimately impacting meaningfully on poverty alleviation and crime reduction.

The project specifically targets NICRO clients (incarcerated persons, former offenders and members of their families, young people in conflict with the law and victims of crime, especially female survivors of violence) as well as other socially excluded, marginalised and unemployed individuals.

NICRO’s Economic Opportunities Project operates from the NICRO Business Service Centre in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats, approximately 45 kilometres from Cape Town. Project participants come primarily from the Cape Metropole. We also offer training and support services throughout the Western Cape (including Atlantis, Beaufort West, Bellville, Ceres, Eerste River, George, Malmesbury, Oudtshoorn, Paarl, Vredenburg and Worcester) should the demand is great enough.

The vast majority – no fewer than 90% - of participants who complete NICRO’s business skills training programme are empowered with the required skills and knowledge, and succeed in establishing their own micro enterprises with NICRO’s support, thus affording them the opportunity of generating a sustainable income.

Offender Reintegration

In addition to the support services rendered to walk-in clients (the provision of general information, advice, counselling and referrals) that comprises the bulk of our work, NICRO Western Cape’s Offender Reintegration Programme involves the following specific components:

1. The Tough Enough Programme (TEP) offered in the Allandale, George, Malmesbury, Pollsmoor and Worcester Prisons
2. The Esther Lategan Study Fund (providing bursaries for both imprisoned TEP participants and the children of incarcerated persons)
3. The Creative Arts Competition
4. The Mentorship Programme, which provides support and guidance for released Tough Enough Programme participants ;
5. Family support services; and
6. The NICRO Bus Service.

Some 80% of released offenders in South Africa return to a life of crime. The intensive Tough Enough Programme (TEP), offering intensive in-prison and post release intervention services, has a highly significant impact on offenders themselves, their families and communities. In the past twelve months no fewer than 70% of NICRO Western Cape’s TEP participants turned their lives around and become responsible, productive and law-abiding citizens. This has contributed significantly to creating safer communities and reducing crime in the province.

Partnerships

Many years ago NICRO Western Cape realised that it could not, single-handedly, take on the challenge of reducing and preventing crime and has, therefore, afforded much attention to establishing and strengthening mutually beneficial, cooperative partnerships with stakeholders and key role-players.

We work in collaboration and close partnership with communities themselves, a range of government departments (mostly notably the Departments of Social Development, Labour, Safety and Security, Justice and Correctional Services), the South African Police Services, community policing and local community safety forums, reconstruction and development forums, a range of victim empowerment and anti-crime forums and networks, as well as a wide range of community-based and civil service organisations operative in the field in addition to other service providers.

An example of an exceptionally effective partnership is that established with communities of the Western Cape and Business Against Crime, which resulted in the development of community capacity to the extent that all of NICRO Western Cape’s trauma rooms were handed over at the end of March 2004, and are now managed by the community with assistance from Business Against Crime.

Roll of Honour

The contribution that NICRO Western Cape continues to make towards the creation of a safer South Africa is dependant on the enduring support of our government, the corporate sector, charitable trusts, foundations and other grant makers, as well as contriutions from individual donors. We, and the communities we serve, remain deeply grateful to them all for their generosity and the confidence they show in our work. We are especially indebted to the state for our subsidies, the provincial government of the Western Cape and the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. Funding from these highly significant donors together account for some 65% of the organisation’s income. We are equally indebted to our governmental and non-governmental partners in the province. We achieve service excellence as a result of our working closely together to serve our communities.

The dedicated support we receive from community volunteers, our unsung heroes and heroines who selflessly share their time, energy and inspiration without expecting anything in return, is humbling to us all. NICRO Western Cape’s management and staff are exceptionally grateful to all of them, as we know that without their support the organisation would not be in a position to render services to all the communities we currently serve.

Would You Consider Helping Us to Make a Difference?

NICRO Western Cape has a small staff compliment of only 42 personnel. Volunteers greatly assist us to increase our capacity and render more widespread, effective services. In exchange for their vital support and contributions, volunteers are afforded the chance of attending workshops, training sessions and accessing self-development opportunities. If you are able to volunteer your services or expertise, please contact our provincial office and offer your assistance, or e-mail jo@prov.nicro.co.za.

Volunteers are needed:

• To assist us in facilitating the life-skills component of the Youth Empowerment Scheme and Journey Programmes for young offenders;
• To mentor young people;
• As business mentors for clients with newly established micro enterprises;
• As counsellors and advisors at community victim support centres
• To provide witness and court support services;
• As community support people for those released from prison;
• To mentor former offenders;
• As administrative and fundraising assistants;
• As event organisers; and
• To assist with building maintenance.

Alternatively, any donations in cash or kind, no matter how big or small, would be deeply appreciated. We are in urgent need of:

• Computers,
• Laptops,
• Overheads projectors,
• Cameras,
• Video machines and television sets or combination units
• Fax machines,
• Stationery, and
• Equipment for the Journey Programme: hiking boots, backpacks, gas cylinders for cooking, tents and other camping equipment.

A Success Story: Empowering and Inspiring Youth

After working as a clerk for a construction concern in New Zealand and managing a franchised restaurant, Gwendolene Benjamin came to the realisation that she wanted to do more with her life. In 2001 she enrolled and completed NICRO Western Cape’s Start and Improve Your Business entrepreneurial skills training programme, taking the first step towards achieving her what she terms “her purpose in life”.

As a volunteer for the Mitchells Plain Youth Development Council she witnessed, firsthand, the challenges with which the at-risk and vulnerable youth of her community were faced. Poor economic circumstances and a serious lack of employment prospects are frequently the motivating factors that result in young people engaging in drug abuse as well and crime and gang-related activities. Gwen immediately made a commitment to giving young people a future they could look forward and established the Youth Employment Recruitment Agency in mid October 2003.

It is Gwen’s vision to educate, motivate and empower young people, which she has elected to do through her business venture. By tendering for and securing contracts with corporate concerns and a wide range of other employers, and placing youth in jobs, her company acquires the necessary finances to fund its social development initiatives. This includes the establishment of study halls and information centres that offer services to members of the community, school leavers and learners in primary and high schools - all at no charge. Gwen firmly believes in ensuring that young people understand the importance of education as an equaliser and the creator of significant development opportunities, and is dedicated to motivating them to embrace all educational opportunities that are available to them.

By securing employment opportunities for young people, Gwen not only empowers youth, providing them with a vital vehicle through which they can improve their lives, but simultaneously makes an invaluable contribution towards reducing crime, creating safer communities and ensuring that we have well-balanced, responsible leaders of the future.

Since the Youth Employment Recruitment Agency first opened its doors 18 months ago, it has already successfully placed more than 200 young people, many of them NICRO clients, in a wide range of factories, private enterprises, government departments and corporate institutions in the hospitality, retail, engineering, mechanical, security, cleaning and packaging industry.

Gwen ascribes her success and motivation to NICRO’s skills training, support services and encouragement.