Gender Links

> Training

> Advocacy

> Halfway Home for young female adults and girls

Each of our residents of the Safe Haven Halfway Home (SHHH) has experienced different sorts of trauma throughout their lifetime and our mission consists of making sense of those same experiences in order to provide them with the adequate skills for a chance at a better future.

At SHHH, we welcome young women from the age of 18, who have suffered from traumatic past experiences and are intent on changing and developing their agency.
As an ongoing service-based, non-for-profit organization we provide our services to the homeless, the abused young girls, the numerous women victims of domestic violence, the teenage mothers and their children.

> Since its inception in September 2017, Gender Links Safe Haven Halfway Home (SHHH) has been a refuge for 103 residents - including children from different socio-economic backgrounds and victims of numerous types of violence throughout their lifetime (including physical, sexual, emotional and economical). 
(In June 2021 : 15 children and 8 adults at SHHH)
> Over the years, we have accommodated 48 children between 0 to 17 years old in the after-school project. 

The Gender Links Mauritius office was established in September 2008. In the past several years Gender Links (GL) has invested a great amount of effort, care, love and dedication to help women and their families come out of their infernal cycle of violence, poverty, lack of self-esteem, and depression.

• Promotes gender equality in and through the media, and in all areas of governance.
• Develops policies and action plans to ensure that gender equality is achieved, especially at the local level.
• Builds the capacity of women, men and all citizens to engage critically in democratic processes that advance equality and justice.
• Conducts campaigns for ending gender violence, HIV and AIDS, economic and climate justice and the rights of marginalised groups

• Successfully conducted a violence Against Women (VAW) Indicator’s Research in the country
• Rolled out the Centres of Excellence (COE) Programme in 11 localities and 76 villages. These have now adopted and are currently implementing the COE process;
• Conducted active advocacy campaigns on ending GBV in schools, universities, women associations, private sector
• Increased the capacity of women in leadership and political representation in all spheres of government – from local to national; and engaged actively with the media to ensure gender sensitive reporting.
• Entrepreneurship programme for survivors of GBV, where personal testimonies of the survivors were written and a 3-phase programme was put in place to train/educate and monitor success of the survivors in their life and business
• Mentorship programme funded by the Decentralised Cooperation Programme (DCP) in 2015-2016 across five councils in Mauritius whereby previous beneficiaries of the entrepreneurship programme become mentors and guided new women entrepreneurs
• Ongoing work with three Local Councils (Curepipe, Savanne and Grand Port) under the CFLI funds where focus was more on gender mainstreaming in council work and gender budgeting. Councillors and head of organisations followed a training of trainers’ programme and in turn trained people in their region/villages/wards.
• Organised and chaired a networking and learning visit for Zimbabwe parliamentarians and a study visit for francophone winners of the regional summit (Seychelles, DRC, Madagascar)
• 16 Days Activism for the last 5 years have been more of a collaborative activism together with other NGOs, academic tertiary institutions, advertising companies and media houses. Bus adverts, videos and social media have been used to increase the visibility of the campaign to increase impact. Leadership with a gender lens training for private sector.
• Funding for entrepreneurship and literacy training by LUX* Resorts and Hotels, CIM Finance, Hongkong Standard bank (HSBC) and State Bank of Mauritius
• Political dialogue organised with the participation of political parties
• Opened Safe Haven Halfway Home a shelter for young abused and homeless teenagers coming out of the Rehabilitation Youth Centre in September 2017. The halfway home has accommodated 67 residents since its opening (as at September 2020)

• Present donors (2020): National Social Inclusion Foundation, European Union (EU), The LUX Collective, La Farge Holcim, Eclosia, Mooneeram Associates, US Embassy, Rotary Port Louis, Toastmasters, Aquathon, Amplify Change + In-kind donations towards Safe Haven Halfway Home from corporate donors and individual donors. 
• Past donors (2018 – 2019) HSBC, SBM, CIM Finance, LUX Hotels and Resorts, SICOM, Fondation Joseph Lagesse, CMT, other corporate donors and individual donors.
• International Donors (2018-2019): Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), Amplify Change, Leading from the South (LFS)