Universities and colleges across South Africa could soon have dedicated Comfort Rooms where students can access confidential, stigma-free support for challenges including gender-based violence (GBV), mental health concerns, HIV and other psychosocial difficulties.
Higher Education and Training Deputy Minister Dr Nomusa Dube-Ncube has called for the expansion of safe and accessible support spaces across the country's post-school education and training (PSET) sector.
Dube-Ncube made the call during the national launch of Higher Health's first Comfort Room at Ekurhuleni East TVET College's Springs Campus.
What Is a Comfort Room?
The Comfort Room is designed to give students a safe environment where they can speak openly about their challenges, seek assistance and access appropriate support.
The initiative responds to the significant number of young people who require psychosocial support.
According to Higher Health, around 394,000 GBV self-risk assessments and approximately 458,000 mental health self-risk assessments have been completed.
These assessments identified close to 189,000 young people who either needed or were actively seeking psychosocial support.
“Those are not statistics. Those are students,” Dube-Ncube said.
She said the figures represent young people dealing with challenges that they may never have discussed with anyone.
The Comfort Room is intended to provide a physical space where students can find trained people who are prepared to listen without judgement.
“Stigma survives in silence, and the Comfort Room creates a space where young people can speak,” the Deputy Minister said.
Support for GBV and Mental Health
The Comfort Room will host several initiatives designed to support students and encourage peer engagement.
These include Survivor Clubs for students who have experienced GBV, Transforming Mentalities Clubs that promote reflection and behavioural change, and peer forums for young people living with HIV.
Students will also be able to participate in mental health conversations, complete self-risk assessments and access referral pathways to appropriate support services.
Dube-Ncube highlighted the importance of the peer-led approach, saying young people may be more comfortable seeking help from people they can relate to and who have experienced similar challenges.
However, she stressed that the Comfort Room will not replace existing support structures.
“No single institution can carry gender-based violence, HIV and mental illness alone.”
The initiative will instead complement the work of the South African Police Service, the Departments of Social Development and Health, as well as non-governmental organisations that provide support to students.
For cases involving sexual violence, the Comfort Room is intended to function as a campus-based extension of the Thuthuzela Care Centre model. It will provide a safe first point of contact where students can speak about their experiences before being connected to appropriate services.
Comfort Rooms Planned for Universities and Colleges
Dube-Ncube said the Department of Higher Education and Training and Higher Health plan to establish Comfort Rooms across universities, TVET colleges and Community Education and Training (CET) colleges.
“This is wrap-around support in its truest form: a continuous circle of concern, care and comfortable conversation that follows a student until they are whole again,” Dube-Ncube said.
She also called on NGOs and the private sector to support the expansion of the initiative.
NGOs are being encouraged to contribute their counselling and GBV response expertise, while businesses and private higher education institutions could provide resources, counselling services, furniture and connectivity.
Student Wellbeing and Skills Development
Dube-Ncube said student wellbeing should be considered an important part of South Africa's broader skills development agenda.
“A skills revolution that produces brilliant technicians with broken spirits is not the revolution we were promised. Skills and wellbeing are not two projects. They are one,” the Deputy Minister said.
She also encouraged universities, TVET colleges and CET colleges to consider introducing confidential wellbeing screening during the first week of a student's academic journey.
More than 850,000 GBV and mental health self-risk assessments have been completed through Higher Health, demonstrating that young people are willing to discuss their challenges when they are asked the right questions at the right time.
“If we can screen a first-year student’s academic readiness, we can screen their emotional readiness too. Catch it at year one, and you very often prevent the crisis of year three.”
Comfort Rooms Could Help Address Social Isolation
The initiative is also intended to respond to increasing social isolation among young people in an increasingly digital environment.
Dube-Ncube said students need opportunities to engage with one another face-to-face and discuss their challenges honestly.
“The Comfort Room, particularly in an age of screens, is a deliberately human space in an increasingly digital world,” she said.
The Deputy Minister hopes that within five years, Comfort Rooms will become as common on South African campuses as libraries.
She also welcomed the participation of 150 Ekurhuleni East TVET College students in Higher Health's one-day Civic Education and Voter Registration Programme ahead of the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Dube-Ncube said the success of the Comfort Room should not be measured simply by its launch, but by whether students feel comfortable entering the space when they need help.
“The true opening of this room will not happen with scissors and ribbon. It will happen the first time a student, alone and afraid, chooses to walk through that door instead of walking past it,” Dube-Ncube said.
