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Lucinda Collette Evans (born 24 August 1972) is a South African women's rights activist and feminist. She is known for having led nationwide marches and was one of the speakers at the AmINext protest outside South Africa's parliament calling for government action against gender-based violence and femicide.
Evans started her organisation in 2008 in her own living room and garage in Cape Flats; initially with just a support group for women and an after-school programme for children. Since its founding, Philisa Abafazi Bethu has grown rapidly to offer not only women's support groups and after-school programmes for children, but she also has a group for abused seniors, a youth group, a Baby hatch, a legal clinic, a women's shelter, and a safe house for members of the LGBT community who have been victims of sexual violence. Both safe houses are currently the only emergency shelters in the region that accepts people regardless of skin color, social background, prevalent medical conditions or addictions.
In 2017, Lucinda Evans and her team assisted the family of the murdered 13-year-old Rene Roman, by providing them with emotional support and helping them in searching for their daughter. Since then, she formed a search team on the 13-year-old's behalf that regularly goes out when children and women go missing.
As a result of the ongoing violence against women and children and the growing tasks for activists, Evans works with several social workers who offer daily counseling to people from Lavender Hill and the surrounding communities. Since 2020, Philisa Abafazi Bethu's projects—with the exception of the women's shelter—are all under the umbrella of the Philisa Abafazi Bethu Family Center in Steenberg.
Lucinda Evans has been politically active against sexual violence and femicide all her life and has initiated and participated in many protest actions in South Africa. For instance, she is the initiator and coordinator of "One Billion Rising South Africa" and was instrumental in initiating the protest action "Am I Next? / #amInext?" in which people from all over the country protested against the increasing sexual violence in South Africa.
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