Mosaic Simelela Project

Note on "Simelela": The Simelela Nurse Examiner Programme was an internationally recognised model for forensic nursing care in South Africa pioneered in the Cape Town area. It is associated with trained forensic nurses providing medico-legal examination of rape survivors. MOSAIC's role in Simelela/TCC partnerships is the psycho-social and containment counselling component. Simelela is not MOSAIC's programme exclusively — it refers to the TCC-based nurse examiner model; MOSAIC is one key partner within that system.

Services by location (confirmed): | Site | Services available | |---|---| | Wynberg (HQ) | Social Services; Court Support; Empowerment; admin | | Mitchells Plain | Court Support; TCC First Responders (Simelela); Social Services | | Khayelitsha | Court Support (Khayelitsha Magistrates Court) | | Philippi | Court Support (3 days/week) | | Blue Downs | Court Support (5 days/week) | | Bellville | Court Support (5 days/week) | | Cape Town Magistrates Court | Court Support (5 days/week) | | Wynberg Magistrates Court | Court Support (5 days/week) | | Paarl | Court Support (3 days/week); Social Services | | Wellington | Court Support (3 days/week) | | Worcester | Social Services; community outreach | | Pretoria (Tshwane) | Court Support; Social Services | | Durban (KZN) | Court Support |

The SAFE Model in practice

MOSAIC's work is structured around four integrated programme areas. A survivor who comes to MOSAIC is not handed off from one service to another — she is held throughout a continuous process of healing, safety, justice, empowerment, and advocacy.

Support and Healing. Whether a woman arrives at the Wynberg head office, Mitchells Plain, Paarl, Worcester, or another site — she enters a space designed to make her feel safe. Crisis counselling addresses her immediate emotional state. Individual and group therapy helps her process trauma over time. Safety planning helps her survive the period between deciding to leave and actually being safe. For women who cannot safely stay at home, MOSAIC's residential shelter provides emergency accommodation and holistic care for women and their children. And the survivor care packs — clothing, food, sanitary products — are a practical acknowledgement of the material reality: when a woman's clothing is taken as evidence at a TCC, she needs something to wear.

Access to Justice — the Court Support Desk. Rolene Miller understood that for most abused women, a magistrate's court is a foreign country with incomprehensible rules, run by officials who don't speak your language and don't know your name. MOSAIC built an embassy inside the court: a trained Court Support Worker who is there — on site, five days a week — to meet the woman when she arrives, explain her rights under the Domestic Violence Act, guide her through the protection order application, prepare her for cross-examination, help her develop a safety plan, counsel her when she is overwhelmed, and stay with her when the perpetrator's lawyer appears with tactics she was not prepared for. This service, operating in courts across Cape Town, Pretoria, and Durban, is believed to be the only on-site court support service of its kind in the world.

Simelela / TCC. At the Mitchells Plain Thuthuzela Care Centre — and in MOSAIC's TCC partnerships more broadly — MOSAIC's First Responders provide containment counselling around the clock: immediate, trauma-sensitive emotional support for rape and sexual assault survivors from the moment they arrive at the TCC, through the forensic medical examination, and into onward referral for services. This is a physically and emotionally demanding role — MOSAIC recruits for day and night shifts — and it is among the most critical forms of GBV response that exists.

Future Free of GBV. Violence against women is not inevitable — it is taught, and it can be untaught. MOSAIC's Stepping Stones programme runs workshops with young people aged 14–25 across the Western Cape, building awareness of harmful gender norms, developing the skills to challenge them, and creating peer advocacy platforms. The work is explicitly community-rooted: participants are not lectured — they are engaged.

Empower. MOSAIC knows from decades of data that the single most common reason a woman stays in an abusive relationship is financial dependence. The response is not only counselling — it is economic transformation. The #Pieces2Peace social enterprise employs survivors in crafts production and prepares them for formal employment. The Women with Women mentorship programme connects survivors with established business leaders. Rights training and community dialogues build knowledge and change norms. An income of her own is not a luxury — it is the difference between going back and staying free.

Advocacy and Policy. MOSAIC does not accept that the current system is as good as it can be. Everything the organisation learns from its services — about how courts fail survivors, how protection orders are not enforced, how financial dependency traps women, how gender norms normalise violence — is fed into advocacy, policy proposals, and engagement with government. The GBVF Bill, the NSP GBVF, the extension of court support services: MOSAIC has influenced them all.

MOSAIC: mosaic.org.za / 021 761 7585 / admin@mosaic.org.za / 66 Ottery Road, Wynberg, Cape Town. Free. Court Support Desks (10 WC courts + Pretoria + Durban), residential shelter, counselling, TCC first response (Mitchells Plain), skills development, community prevention. 2 million+ served since 1993. GBV crisis: 0800 428 428 (toll-free, 24/7).