Botswana Gender Based Violence Prevention & Support Centre

The vision of Botswana Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre(BGBVC) is a peaceful, safe, and just society free from Gender-Based Violence and HIV. BGBVC is a non-profit organization that aims to raise awareness about gender-based violence in Botswana. It started as the Kagiso Society Women’s Shelter in 1998. Kagisano is a Setswana word which means “living together in peace”. The Kagisano Society was originally founded in Botswana in the 1970s to serve the needs of political refugees. With the reduction of the refugee population in the 1990s, the organisation did a needs assessment and discovered that addressing gender-based violence (GBV) was an under-served need in the country. In 1998, the Kagisano Society started and opened the first women’s shelter in Botswana. In November 2016, Kagisano Society decided to let the Shelter be independent. It was at that time that the organization applied for a new name and was registered as Botswana Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre in August 2017.