Champion of children’s rights
Through Teddy Bear Foundation and charity work, Shaheda Omar fights for the defenceless
AWARD-WINNING child rights activist and clinical director of the Teddy Bear Foundation (TBF), Shaheda Bibi Omar, is a ray of hope for many children who have suffered abuse or rape.
Omar has been with the foundation for 20 years and is an authority on child protection in the country.
The Johannesburg mother of four – Ayesha, 38, Fatima, 37, Mohammed, 34, and Maryam, 31 – is married to Yunoos Omar.
She said she had always wanted to be a doctor and “heal people”. She studied towards a BA psychology degree and aged 35 decided she wanted to be a child rights activist.
“This is a difficult job but I take my strength from my spiritual connection,” said Omar.
“We enable children to learn how to heal themselves. Children come to us feeling stuck and we help them unstick themselves. We tap into their own resources and enable them to take back a sense of control.”
The foundation is an NGO which offers psychosocial services. She said in her time at TBF, cases had included severe physical abuse, where a child had brain damage, and incestuous rape, where victims had babies from their biological fathers.
She has also worked with children with mild to severe physical and intellectual disabilities.
Omar said she coped with the emotional daily trauma by getting debriefing sessions: “essential and critical”.
“The support of wonderful colleagues and being surrounded by a strong team also helps.
“Of all the cases I have had to deal with, the most heartbreaking are the incestuous relationships. In these cases families betrayed and violated their children and this wrecked victims lives – instilling a lot of blame and shame in the victims. This caused emotional and psychological harm which perpetuated intergenerational patterns of violence.
“Releasing these children back into their homes is never easy. Home is where the hope is, but where there is no hope, how do you send a child there? It’s not easy to cut off a victim from the perpetrator, sooner or later the perpetrator returns.
“But there are days when there are breakthroughs – when a child starts smiling again.
“Long-term studies show child victims of rape and abuse can grow up to be champions,” she said.
“It highlights the message that there’s hope. Feedback from some rape and abuse victims is that their trauma did not define them.”
TBF is making a change in the lives of many, but the challenge they face is getting funding, said Omar.
Her work doesn’t end when she leaves the office, as she is involved in range of charity organisations, including Nkosi’s Haven.
She has received numerous awards for her work, from the Impumelelo Social Innovators Gold Award (2013), to the Standard Bank Women of the Year Award (2014) and Mumbai Global Award for the most impactful health leader (2018).
“The designation of wife in India, of the Hindu wife, is higher and grander than that of Empress. She is called Devi” – VIRCHAND RAGHAVJI GANDHI