Mphuti Lydia Tloubatla

I am proud of this workshops that I am attending because they have healed my spirit, I can see clearly now and a lot of things have changed to the positive. I was a victim in my own marriage being victimised by my own husband and this has also affected our children. My first born son grew up unhappy and this situation has also made him abusive. My son ended up abusing me also by not being respectful towards me. This has affected me to a point where I was always crying asking myself why are all this things happening to me. I did not know what to and I ended up keeping everything to myself. As a result I became anti-social, I did not want to socialise with other people thinking they could see what I was going through.

VEP has connected me with a Social worker who was there for me and consoling me in every way. I met other people who were experiencing same problems as me and I ended up realising that my problems are not as bad as I thought other people are experiencing more problems. I was consoled and from there I wanted to stand and to become progressive.
I started in 2013 to attend this workshops and attended all the trainings. These workshops are really helpful because when I started writing down all the things that were bothering me I felt relieved. This was good for me as I could not talk to anyone about my problems. I could not draft a business plan before as a result I ended up working in a business where I could not even make any profit. I asked for assistance of ways to sustain my business in the workshop and making sure that it becomes a success, and I was assisted.

I am able to plant my own vegetables and end up not buying any vegetable towards the household. I am trying to open a business that is going to sell sweets. Yes because I was selling but I could not get any income from the business, but today I can see what I am working for. Yes by encouraging VEP’s to give us programmes. Khuseleka One Stop Centre has connected me with different organisations.
The community members are happy that I persevered through difficulties and they have learned from my ways of defeating problems, to talk to people and not bottle problems inside. Even though I am not working, I am managing to raise my children with my small business and also I am proud of the person I have become.
I am able to send victims to appropriate organisations where they can get assisted. I created of a support group where woman share their problems and give each other advices of how to get out of their problems.
I have learned about business plan, can write a business plan and send it to investors, I want to create my own business and want to own a business that can sustain my family. Want to own lots of businesses which in turn will employ a lot of people from the community.
I am grateful to organisations that linked me with Gender links, I am eternally grateful to Gender Links for all the trouble they have went through, I hope they will not forget about us they will keep on encouraging us. They have been there for us through difficult times; you occupy an important part in our life. Long live Gender Links.