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Satyana Institute is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit organization. Satyana Institute relies upon the support of individuals and sponsoring organizations. Programs are currently offered throughout the United States, in South Africa, and India. Satyana Institute Tel (360) 632-5121
Email: cynthia@satyana.org
December, 2009
Dear Friends of Satyana, Please help us bring healing and reconciliation to women and men in Africa! “More girls have been killed in the past fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century.” Thus states the powerful new book on the oppression of women entitled Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book further asserts that the historical battles against slavery and totalitarianism were the central moral challenges of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. “In this century,” the authors claim with confidence, “the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.” South Africa provides an arresting case in point. According to U.N. statistics, South Africa is the nation with the highest incidence of rape in the world.1 South Africa also has the greatest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world.2 “Freedom from the shackles that bind both men and women” Remarkably, despite these heartbreaking statistics, there are powerful signs of hope for transforming the tragic social malaise between women and men in South African society. In her keynote speech to a national conference on patriarchy held in Cape Town last March, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament in South Africa, Nozizwe Madlala Routledge, proclaimed that “We now have a tool that can address patriarchy and unite women and men in a struggle for freedom from the shackles that bind both men and women.” This tool is the Power of Reconciliation work developed by Satyana Institute, and implemented in a series of some twenty pilot programs conducted throughout South Africa over the past six years. Satyana Institute’s Power of Reconciliation project stands at the crucial threshold of “going to scale” in South Africa. We are on the brink of making this dream a reality, and we need your help. Deputy Speaker Routledge devoted the second half of her speech to extolling the virtues of Satyana Institute’s power of reconciliation work between women and men in South Africa. She recounted a personal experience in our training that helped her summon the courage to challenge then President Thabo Mbeki and overturn his widely unpopular AIDS policy in South Africa. For this she was hailed a hero both within South Africa and the international AIDS community. The time has come to roll out Power of Reconciliation work on a much broader scale Deputy Speaker Routledge’s enthusiasm is corroborated by a detailed report released in June, 2009 by Phaphama Initiatives in Johannesburg, a national NGO focused on eliminating violence in South African society. Following successful pilot programs conducted by Satyana Institute in diverse venues—ranging from teenagers in poor townships, to Members of Parliament, to religious leaders in the South African Council of Churches, to prisoners at Pollsmoor and Leeuwkop Prisons—this report concludes: It is clear from the success of these workshops that there is a great need to roll-out gender reconciliation work on a much broader scale in South Africa. Not only does this work have the potential to heal relationships between men and women; it also has the power to give rise to a new generation of adults who will be far better equipped to take up the privilege and responsibility of parenting in a way, which honours and nurtures the self-actualisation of the next generation of children. This combination of healing and reconciliation on the one hand, with the growth of more effective, respectful and compassionate parenting skills on the other, is a powerful tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS; in fact, the only tool that addresses the root causes of HIV/AIDS rather than just the symptoms. To spread this work further will demand a great deal of resources and donor commitment. We are fully committed to rolling out this work on a significant scale in our society, and even to spreading it to our peace networks in Southern Africa. Gender Reconciliation Initiative poised to “go to scale” in South Africa In collaboration with our network of South African colleagues, Satyana Institute has been invited to help launch a three year Gender Reconciliation Initiative in South Africa. In November, 2009, Phaphama Initiatives received a three-year grant of 30,000 Euros per year to fund the South African portion of this initiative. This funding represents the single largest financial breakthrough to date toward the practical implementation of Gender Reconciliation on a significant scale in South Africa. These funds are slated to cover Phaphama’s staff and administrative expenses plus internal costs for the program in South Africa, but they do not include funding Satyana’s portion of the collaboration. Satyana Institute is therefore seeking to raise “matching” funds of $30,000 to cover the first year of our portion of the Gender Reconciliation Initiative. These funds are required to cover expenses for Satyana Institute to fulfill our commitment in this collaboration, which is to train a group of professional facilitators of Gender Reconciliation in South Africa. The degree of professional skill, integrity, and clinical competence required for proper facilitation of gender reconciliation work is high, and Satyana Institute is committed to providing the highest quality training to a carefully selected group of exceptionally qualified professional facilitators. This will ensure the most effective implementation of the gender reconciliation program in South Africa, and the initiative is fully backed by Phaphama’s national network of more than 140 activists for non-violence that has been built in its twenty years of operation in South Africa. Satyana Institute has also been invited to introduce our Power of Reconciliation work in the Congo in February, 2010. As you may know, some of the most severe and systematic rape of women on a massive scale has been taking place in the Congo in recent years. Please contribute what you can to support this vital initiative . . . We recognize that these are unprecedented times economically, and that charitable funds are more scarce than usual. Yet every bit helps, and we have a rare opportunity for Satyana’s healing work with women and men to manifest at a whole new level of effectiveness. With the Netherlands funding in hand, and the tremendous promise of implementing a proven social intervention on a broad scale that could reduce violence against women and girls and begin transforming social conditions that lead to gender-based violence in African societies, we earnestly ask for your generous financial support to Satyana Institute to support the Gender Reconciliation Initiative in South Africa. We have reduced staff compensation and expenses to bare-bones levels, so that every dollar donated will go to in the budget outlined below. Please help us to fulfill our part in this crucial collaboration. Tax-deductible donations can be made by Paypal, or mailed by check to the address below. Thank you for your generous help! Sincerely, William Keepin, Ph.D., Executive Director Satyana Institute Tel (360) 632-5121 Email: cynthia@satyana.org Donate online by clicking the button below:
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