WOMEN'S SHELTER - Gaborone

BGBVC was founded by Kagisano Society, an organisation that has been doing humanitarian work in Botswana since the 1970s. At the time of formation of Kagisano Society, Botswana was receiving a high number of asylum seekers from neighboring countries due to the liberation wars. With the reduction of the refugee population in the 1990s, the organization did a needs assessment and found that addressing gender based violence was an under-served need in the country. In 1998, the Kagisano Society started the Women’s Shelter Project and opened the first women’s shelter in Botswana in Gaborone. The organisation is now operating in nine sites in Botswana under the following programme areas; counseling, community outreach & education as well as an emergency and temporary shelter (only in Gaborone). It is the first and the only shelter for battered women in the southern part of the country that admits women and children fleeing Gender Based Violence from their homes.