By Sakhile Dlamini

SWAGAA, in partnership with UNICEF Eswatini, is implementing interventions to strengthen the national response to gender-based violence (GBV) and violence against children (VAC) in Eswatini. 

These interventions are part of a broader project supported by the UKAID Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) titled “Supporting life-saving multi-sectoral interventions responding to the impact of climate shocks on children in Southern Africa”. 

Through this partnership, all SWAGAA Counsellors have been trained on customer care to strengthen the organization’s innovations and extension to digital service provision. SWAGAA’s counselling services are open to all Emaswati and available through; face to face - where clients may visit the SWAGAA office or any of the sites within the regions of the country, services are also accessible on call - the toll-free line that was only accessible through landline was made accessible to the MTN Eswatini network users at the start of the COVID19 period and in the beginning of the year 2021; the toll-free line was made accessible to Eswatini Mobile Network users. This is good news as the toll-free line is now accessible to mobile phone users across all networks in the country. This has led to an increase in reporting of cases of GBV and improved reporting of cases amongst men as well.

 The extended accessibility of the toll-free line adds to an already existing mobile reporting; the U-Report Platform.

This is an SMS based platform that SWAGAA introduced in partnership with UNICEF. The SMS based platform was introduced mainly to create a safe space for child participation and engagement on issues of abuse and gender based violence. However, the platform offers great perks such as anonymity, which is highly favored by adults in reporting abuse cases when they also want to stay anonymous. The platform is interactive and with instant responses; users also have access to counsellors. 

Since the COVID pandemic there has been increased utilization of digital platforms, that has intensified with the political unrest. SWAGAA employs a client-centered approach and so it has been very important for the organization to be flexible in order to stay relevantand be of service to Emaswati.  The purpose of the training therefore, was to capacitate Case Management officers on customer care; how to manage and attend to abuse cases reported through the toll-free line, a recap on Gender Based Violence, Violence Against Children, a client centered approach to GBV cases and basic counselling skills on the digital platforms. The stafftrainings are an ongoing mission to ensure that SWAGAA continues to provide quality service to all clients, whilst ensuring that the organization stays abreast with the rapidly changing environment and that the staff is well capacitated.