COPES-SA

The founding moment of COPESSA was collective rage — the rage of women in Alexandra Township in 2000 who heard what had been done to a six-year-old girl and refused to accept it as the price of community life. The iSililo campaign — a women's cry — came first. From several consultative indabas, COPESSA was shaped: Community-based Prevention and Empowerment Strategies in South Africa. An organisation built not around giving to passive recipients, but around the conviction that communities, equipped and supported, are the most effective instruments of change.

Twenty-one years later, COPESSA operates from Protea Glen Ext. 11 in Soweto — a community where unemployment, poverty, drug use, and harmful gender norms create, in the organisation's own published research, "a fertile ground for violence and disempowerment." Its work spans violence against children (VAC) and violence against women (VAW), recognising — as COPESSA's 2019 community research confirmed — that these two forms of violence are deeply intersected and cannot be addressed in isolation.

Leading all of this is Dr Nobulembu (Nobs) Mwanda: medical doctor (MBBCh, Wits), master's graduate in Community Paediatrics and in Public Health (Social and Behaviour Change Communication), Shoprite Checkers Woman of the Year, and MTN Foundation Board member. She brings clinical training (including medico-legal assessment and support of sexually abused children), research capability, and community-level implementation experience that is rare in the South African GBV sector.

Theoretical and Evidence Foundation

COPESSA explicitly grounds its work in evidence, using the WHO's INSPIRE framework (seven strategies for ending violence against children) and RESPECT framework (six strategies for preventing violence against women) as scaffolding for all programmes. It applies the socio-ecological model, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Learning Theory, and theories of social norms, gender, and power. COPESSA has produced published research findings, engaged in long-term partnership with Wits University researchers, and makes all its publications freely available at copessa.co.za — including annual reports, baseline research, C4D strategies, evaluation reports, and academic conference papers.

Services for Survivors and Communities

Psychosocial Support for Survivors of Violence Free direct psychosocial support and counselling for survivors of GBV and violence against children in the Soweto community.

Community Mobilisation Training and activating community members, local structures, and leaders as active participants in preventing violence — not passive observers.

Social and Behaviour Change Communication Campaigns and communications designed to shift knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours that enable violence: harmful gender norms, masculinity constructs, community silence around abuse, and parenting patterns that perpetuate risk.

Skills Development Economic empowerment and skills development for women — addressing the structural poverty that makes leaving violent situations practically impossible for many women.

Supportive Environments — Safe Spaces Creating physical and social environments within the community where women and children can access support, information, and connection safely.

Community Participatory Research Engaging community members in generating knowledge about their own experience of violence — producing localised, authentic evidence that informs programmes and contributes to national and international knowledge. Research partnerships include the University of the Witwatersrand.

Publications (freely available at copessa.co.za)

COPESSA Annual Report 2025 | Baseline research findings | C4D Strategy 2026 | How COPESSA is Combating GBV in Soweto | COPESSA Evaluation Final 2015 | MPH Research Report (Wits–Mwanda) | PG Community Perspectives of Youth 2022 | Parents' Perspectives on Child Abuse and Neglect (Wits Biennial 2019) | Public Health Directives in a Pandemic

COPESSA: Stands 8955–8956, Protea Glen Ext. 11, Soweto, Johannesburg. Phone: 011 297 3320 / 082 570 4258. Email: manager@copessa.co.za. NPO 041-733. All services free. Website: copessa.co.za.