South Africa: Health Championing

The young woman in the province was able to benefit from this program as we were able to help 50 matriculates to enrol at universities and TVET colleges through funding that had been donated by business and ordinary people. The exception of a few males who come from dire poverty circumstances, our empowerment programs are based towards the girl child from the disadvantaged background. We were motivated by this gesture to help girls who come from disadvantaged background to achieve their desired goals. The provide sanitary towels to pupils mainly in rural areas.

Context

It has become a concern to us the way teenage girls are using skills, talents, and energy. They become master in sling wrong things e.g.  Become pros in fraud, different types of crimes, and become mothers while they still need to be mothered and cared for by the parents and they end up dropping out from school.  Look at the prisons, hospitals, taverns, escort agencies, 99% of the population is teenagers: they fill hospitals because they are dying of HIV AIDS. The growing number of HIV/AIDS orphans, unemployed and violence characterizes the social situations. The girls and woman of all ages still have a very limited say over their lives and in particular over their sexuality. the main problem faced by woman and girls is the expense of commercial sanitary pads, absenteeism where girls stay at home rather than attending schools when menstruating, limited education about the facts of menstruation, limited access to counselling and guidance, embarrassment and low self-esteem. It became clear to a program that many schoolchildren live with basic health and sanitation, including something we take for granted-sanitary pads, a packet of pads can be able to help a girl’s child to complete their education.

Key Actions

We will be running different programs like workshops, creating awareness, training, conversations, dialogues, and imbizos in deep rural areas as these young people are the ones that are deeply affected, teenagers who dropped out of school will have the opportunity to gain life skills and have had a second chance to bring beauty out of their mistakes. A clear understanding of HIV/AIDS, how teenagers/young woman should prevent infection and for those who have been infected will know how to look after themselves and others. Our aim is to make adolescents girls recognize that they are contributing to the silence and stigma around menstruation and encourage them to voice out on this issue and talk about it.

Partners

We were able to work with a former government official who was generous enough to use her money to acquire certain things. We managed to go around as well from individuals and companies to assist us in any way. Donations we also received from different individuals who wanted to assist.

Strategies

We had to make a lot of collaboration with different partners. we have identifies the need to mobilize sanitary towel, therefore, we have put more boxes in a number of public locations like churches, municipalities, and departments for people to drop.

Challenges

Facing a grip of poverty in South Africa. 54 % of the total population in South Africa is living in absolute poverty, increasing vulnerability to and impact HIV. About 65% of women and girls in SA cannot afford sanitary pads. According to UNICEF, one in ten pupils in Africa miss classes or drop out completely due to their periods. The health sector, we aim to assist needy girls in public schools. Also training teacher /peer educators on sexual menstruation and puberty education. We have a community dialogue model. A community engagement medium that works as an open show. Youth observe their community and comes up with a development topic for discussions and put it in context of millennium development goal, appoints a charismatic host to deliberate the session and engage a two or three member expert panel. The vibrant session aims to bring the community together, develop a localised solution and promote youth leadership on community-based issues

Immediate results and next steps

The greatest achievement of this program is the increased enrolment and attendance of schools by girls in the targeted schools. The program is affecting girls positively and teachers attest to this. We are providing mentoring and life orientation skills by means of education and to instil worth in South Africa.

Long term Impact

Sanitary towels manufacturing because of the need for sanitary towels and the challenges of youth unemployment. Activate Limpopo is exploring the possibility of securing funds to build a factory to manufacture sanitary pads. Young unemployment women will get priority in this regard. We have a second chance program; this program is a package to help encourage young girls who lost hope for the future due to social economic factors like early pregnancy, drugs and alcohol abuse, poverty, and domestic violence.

Learning and Application

That every one of us in our respective communities has a part to play to eradicate all bad things in our communities. Change starts with us. We are all called to drive change in our communities and country as a whole. We had our shortfalls through this project and going forth we looking into rectifying that and growing this project to assist more young girls in our province.