Embrace began as an effort to connect people across the deliberate socio-economic, geographic, and racial divides that characterise Cape Town. From 2014, Embrace (then known as Cape Town Embrace) connected families from different areas of the city and attempted to build links between communities through these families. Our goal was, and has always been, to support mothers and build networks which can hold mothers and their needs. In its earliest form, Embrace did this through its work with families across barriers that represent the legacies of apartheid.
About Embrace
Embrace’s Story
This was no easy task. Although connections were made and links were forged, in 2016 the decision was made that Embrace needed to find a new form through which to build networks supporting mothers and motherhood. After a period of soul-searching, Embrace’s current form emerged as the way forward.
This form is both complex and simple. Embrace is complex because we do many things. We run a fellowship. We build connections between government, civil society organisations, and individuals. We campaign for the rights and needs of mothers in all their forms. We bring awareness to the harms mothers endure and the ways in which our society can tackle those harms.
But Embrace is also very simple. We are a network that honours, centres, and spotlights the mothers that hold our society together.
We advocate for mothers and mother-supporters at every level, and we ask people to remember that motherhood is difficult. Mothers and mother-supporters do important work, and that work should be both celebrated and capacitated. Capacitating mothers means acknowledging them as mothers first, and as paths to their children second. Mothers are important because they are people before they are important because of their children.
This work is supported through Embrace’s position as an incubated project of the DG Murray Trust, a public innovator through strategic investment. For more on the Trust’s work and other projects, please visit its website at https://dgmt.co.za/.
Embrace is constantly evolving and seeking new ways to support mothers in all the forms they take. If you have a suggestion or would like to join our network of mother-supporters, please contact us via the Contact Us page or the Join the Network page respectively.