Community Cohesion NPC

The Core Approach: "Not For, But With"

Community Cohesion's model is encapsulated in four words: not for, but with. Its professionals do not do things for clients. They inform clients of their rights, walk the path with them as they claim those rights, and then step back — with the explicit goal of building the client's own capacity, agency, and resilience, so that they are not permanently dependent on any external support.

This is not a passive model. It is an active, sustained commitment to rights-based engagement with people who have often never been told they have rights.

Service Offering

Crisis Containment. Community Cohesion's original model — one-on-one crisis containment at the point of trauma — remains at its core. Trained professionals are embedded in SAPS victim support centres across Hout Bay, Ocean View, and Masiphumelele, and at the Paarl Thuthuzela Care Centre. When a survivor arrives — after a rape, after an assault, after fleeing a home — there is someone with them at that first, most acute moment.

Rights-Based Therapeutic Social Work and Counselling. Individual, couple, and family therapeutic sessions, delivered by social workers and therapeutic counsellors, address the full range of current and historic trauma from crime and violence. The approach is explicitly rights-based: every client is informed of their rights and what services and remedies they are entitled to.

Practical Legal Assistance. Community Cohesion helps survivors apply for protection orders and intimidation orders, and accompanies them through the court process — addressing one of the most significant barriers survivors face: navigating a legal system they don't know, in a language they may not be comfortable with, alone.

Therapeutic Group Work. Group sessions build emotional resilience, reduce isolation, and create community among people who have shared experiences of violence and loss.

Educational Workshops. Rights-based community workshops on a range of topics build awareness of rights, services, and responsibilities across Community Cohesion's service areas.

Men's Intervention Programme. Led by Luvuyo Teko and Xolelani Magqazolo, this specialised programme provides therapeutic social work and behaviour change counselling for men who use violence — addressing the perpetrator side of the GBV equation and working to break cycles of inter-generational violence.

One School at a Time. School-based therapeutic counsellors (Jemma McCallum and Miguel de Abreu) work within selected schools in the service area, providing psychosocial support, resilience-building, and therapeutic intervention for learners.

Aalwyn Place of Safety. A GBV/DV shelter providing short-term safe accommodation for women fleeing violence, staffed by a therapeutic social worker (Gail April), a social auxiliary worker (Chantell Jacobs), and three housemothers (Charmaine Drysdale, Elsa Adams, Maria Fortuin). The Aalwyn team provides not just safety but therapeutic support and practical guidance for women in residence.

Thuthuzela Care Centre — Paarl (Drakenstein)

Community Cohesion's presence at the Paarl TCC is significant. Three social auxiliary workers (Vivienne Buyeye, Gladys Senyani, She-Earl Onverwacht) are embedded within this NPA-managed multi-disciplinary GBV response centre — one of the most effective models for integrated rape and GBV response in South Africa. Community Cohesion's role within the TCC includes containment counselling, evidence-collection support, and social work follow-up.

For sexual assault and rape survivors in the Drakenstein / Paarl area, the Paarl TCC (in partnership with Community Cohesion) is the appropriate integrated care pathway.

Victoria Hospital Forensic Unit

Community Cohesion also places a Registered Psychological Counsellor (Andrea Turner) as a Victim Assistance Officer at the Victoria Hospital Forensic Unit — the primary forensic evidence-collection centre for sexual assault cases across a significant portion of the Cape Flats. Survivors arriving at this forensic unit have immediate access to psychological counselling alongside clinical care.

Social Crime Prevention

Community Cohesion's social crime prevention programme (staffed by Elize Britz) works upstream — in communities and institutions — to address the conditions that enable crime and violence, rather than responding only after it happens.

Community Cohesion: communitycohesion.co.za. Phone: +27 61 683 6943. Email: bronwyn@communitycohesion.co.za. Head office: Hout Bay, Cape Town. Areas: Hout Bay, Ocean View, Masiphumelele, Fish Hoek, Simonstown, Woodstock, Paarl TCC (Drakenstein), Victoria Hospital Forensic Unit. Services: crisis containment, therapeutic social work, court support, protection orders, Men's Intervention Programme, Aalwyn Place of Safety, One School at a Time, TCC social work. National Top VEP NGO — Western Cape.