Sisters with Blisters taking place 28 November

We’ve all had them, that extremely pain­ful blister after a fun night out wear­ing your favour­ite pair of stilet­tos. But this doesn’t really give us a sense of achieve­ment or make much dif­fer­ence to any­one but ourselves. So why not get a blister on 28 November 2009 that will actu­ally mean something?

Sisters with Blisters in an annual event that has been tak­ing place for the past 3 years. Jacaranda 94.2 and First for Women have joined forces to raise aware­ness on the abuse suffered by many women and chil­dren in this coun­try each year. This is a worthy cause to bring to pub­lic atten­tion as it is often hushed aside. The event takes place dur­ing the International 16 days of Activism against women and child abuse (25 November to 10 December).

Jacaranda 94.2 wanted to grab the nation’s atten­tion and try to assist women and chil­dren in this situ­ation to stand up against their abuse situ­ation or envir­on­ment and let it be known that is is not ok. How did they decide to do this, well let me tell you it cer­tainly has me hooked, because the concept is shoes.

Show me a woman who doesn’t love shoes and I’ll faint on the spot. So all of the women out there who are ser­i­ous both about the pre­ven­tion of women and child abuse (and about shoes!) should take up the chal­lenge of walk­ing in their stilet­tos to speak up and give a voice to those who are often unheard.

In 2008 there were more than 2500 par­ti­cipants and this year hope­fully this fig­ure will grow sub­stan­tially. Everyone is encour­aged to par­ti­cip­ate, even if you do not wear stilet­tos, so all the men and boys in your fam­ily shouldn’t back down to this chal­lenge as flat shoes are also welcome.

There is a 16km walk start­ing at 07h30 as well as a 4km walk start­ing at 10h30 at the The Campus, 57 Sloan Street, Corner of Sloan Street and Main Road, Bryanston. Late entries regis­tra­tion opens bright and early at 06h30 and a lucky draw takes place at 12h00 (with fab­ulous prizes from Canon and a one week shop­ping spree in Paris is also up for grabs). Entry fee is R100 per per­son, if you have a cor­por­ate team of 10 mem­bers it is R900 for the team. Late entries are charged an addi­tional R40.

Ikhaya Lethemba, in Braamfontein, who provide hol­istic and integ­rated ser­vices for sur­viv­ors of viol­ence against women and chil­dren had all the funds raised from the first Sisters with Blisters walk in 2006 donated to them.

The Leigh Matthews Stress and Trauma Centre which was estab­lished to address the need for coun­selling to com­munity mem­bers who have exper­i­ences trauma who would not oth­er­wise be afforded the oppor­tun­ity for such pro­fes­sional ser­vices. Women and Men against Child Abuse provide free (not much is free these days...) med­ical, psy­cho­lo­gical and fol­low up vis­its to chil­dren as well as their fam­il­ies who have been sexu­ally, phys­ic­ally or emo­tion­ally abused at their one-stop Kids Clinics.

Finally Bethany House, in Lorentville houses women and their chil­dren who have escaped either abus­ive rela­tion­ships, traf­fick­ing or sexual assault. All of these are such worthy causes to be supporting.

It really doesn’t mat­ter who you are, what your job title is, where you live, what clothes you wear stand up or rather put on those shoes you nor­mally go dan­cing in and walk in sup­port of the pre­ven­tion of women and child abuse!

Contact Details:
For any quer­ies about the event tele­phone +27 (0)11 807 3596 and any entry quer­ies can be dir­ec­ted to +27 (0)11 844‑0416 / 9 or visit the web site at: http://www.sisterswithblisters.co.za/

Charities:
If you are unable to take part in the event on the day but would still like to assist some of these worth­while char­it­ies you can find their con­tact details below:

Ikhaya Lethemba: +27 (0)11 422‑4107
Leigh Matthews Stress and Trauma Centre: +27 (0)11 226‑2200
Women and Men Against Child Abuse: +27 (0)11 789‑8815
Bethany House: +27 (0)11 660‑2763

Photo Credits:
Photographs from the Sisters with Blisters web­site at http://www.sisterswithblisters.co.za/