Eswatini: Tryphinah Ngomane

Economic Empowerment and Gender Equality can bring change in Society.

I work for the Salvation Army organization as a Female Peer Educator for GBV, Sexual Reproductive Health and HI6/AIDS. It is a faith based organization that works with the Fonteyn community and other donors. Their role is to help needy children in that constituency. We work with other people such as Social workers and the Ministry of Education in the kingdom of Eswatini, which encourages the children to work hard in school. The Royal Swaziland Police Officers help in talking about the SODV act,drug abuse and they give information on when and how is the law enforced. Church Pastors and mentors are also involved in this program.

ACTIVITIES

We have various camps every Saturdays and during school recess in the first term. During this time we do a number of activities with the children which include teaching them livelihood skills, reading story books, writing and reciting poems as well as playing different kinds of games. In addition to that we do exercises that help in training their brains and we also invite teachers from different institutions to come and teach the children.

Our goal is to have a healthy and educated young generation that will be independent and leaders of tomorrow. We started with this program because we saw that there are a number of teenagers who drop out of school.  As a result of different circumstances such as the lack of school fees, uniform, food, clothing, teenage pregnancy and child abuse. As we continue to teach the children, we hope that that they will be able to voice out challenges affecting them and be able to make their own money through the knowledge they gain from the livelihood skills. In addition to that we believe that with the knowledge that they get from these camps, they will be able to teach and help their peers who are still without this kind of information. Moreover these camps empower the children to fight peer pressure and also develop a high self-esteem. The children or youth of today face a lot of challenges such as peer pressure, different kinds of abuse which they experience either at home or school and also face bulling by their peers. In these camps we teach the children about what to do when they come across such problems.

We teach them how to treat or behave with other people and we also help educate them about relationship affairs and sexual intercourse at an early stage. In addition to that we also offer counseling services to those who need it and sometimes the counseling is done at their homes. There are a lot of children who are in need of basic necessities such as food, toiletry and clothes. As a result of this great need the organization provides them with toiletries, sanitary pads for ladies and clothes. Food parcels, uniforms, school fees for some and story books are provided as well. There was no budget or US$ (dollars) allocated to this project but we did have 30 direct beneficiaries which comprised of 20 females and 10 males. Even though there was no set budget for this project we still achieved a lot because we were able to meet the children’s needs and their enthusiasm was seen in them always showing up for the meetings. It is also a privilege to be able to provide them with a place where they can showcase their talents and also be able to learn how to deal with challenges they face as they are growing up.

OUTCOME AND RESULTS

The main challenges faced by these children include dropping out of school due to the lack of funds, uniform, family issues, lack of clothes and bad influence from peers. Solutions to these problems included having the children apply for bursaries so their school fees is taken cared of, we also bought others clothes, food and school shoes. We did home visits as well where we talked with their parents about the challenges their children are facing, and after counseling is provided to them. For those who dropped out of school due to pregnancy, we refer some of them to the DPM office where they were transferred to the child welfare unit. Other children are referred to the Royal Swaziland police unit due to the complications of the child in the family.

The project is addressing these issue by providing kid`s clubs and assigning two leaders in each community who are of the same constituency. These leaders provide lessons and connect children from the community with different backgrounds to meet and address issues they have. Through these connections the children are able to speak up for themselves and in turn help other kids who are not part of the program to learn from them. I have learned that it is important to teach children in the right way so that they apply what they have learnt with understanding. It is also necessary to understand the background of each kid so that you are able to accommodate all of them. In playing a part in these camps l have learnt the importance of always sharing the good and bad things in life, as well as how to take care of yourself, love your body and show respect to others.