South Africa: Debora Makgoba

“The My Life Program changed my life on gender activist. I also realised that not all men are not good. I realised that kids need love from both parents but unfortunately they get it from a single parent hence their behaviour. This helped me to have a mind of volunteering on community work and prioritise young people especially boys.”

I am a Pastor and my vision is to see families living together and happy. There was a lot of abuse in my community mostly men abusing women especially husbands abusing wives and this became my concern. What I also realised is that boy child has to be educated to make them better fathers and husband through spiritual care.

Women are nation builders and their responsibility is to ensure we bring up responsible adults. We all know children are the best copiers of what their parents are doing and believe in. If the father abuses the mother, the boy child will always think that its normal. Kids need love and a sense of belonging in their life. Children should not be taught life on the streets, it is our responsibility as parents to show them the way with love.

There was a family where the father was abusing the mother and the mother decided to file a divorce and the father got married again. The boy child started to have problems with the law and ended in Prison on My Life Programme that bring a sense of belonging and love. The boy is now living with the grandmother and all is well again.

To utilise the skills possessed by parolees and sharpen them so that they become independent and marketable.
To teach youth through activities such as Agriculture, Handwork, Sewing, Beadwork, Welding, Paperwork, Arts & Culture.
To integrate offenders with their families and the community.
To address Economic care of our community
To take them through anger management.
To train parolees about renewal of mind.
Buy clothes for parolees.

Activities
Spiritual Care, school outreach My Life program
To teach on how to behave in the current moral degeneration society.
Establish half way house centre that will be home for parolees

The change reflected on my grandson can be seen by the way he loves people and embrace everyone. He even entertains the visitors and give them food to eat when adults are not home. He also loves to give a helping hand all the time and also help needy learners at school.
Most of the families are living happy in their houses especially those staying with Parolees as they are initially rejected when they are out of jail. Just to give an example of a man who was rejected by the families and on My Life Program intervention, he was accepted and now they are now living a happy life. The behaviour of gangsters in schools and among learners have been minimised through our intervention. Now schools are better in terms of safety after the program.