More than half of the children in SA live in poverty-UN

Opportunities should be created for youth to blossom

Southern Africa faces an increasing orphan crisis due the HIV and AIDS pandemic, crisis or other causes. According to surveys, about 43 million children in the Southern Africa region do not have parents. They are also susceptible to violence, hunger and other abuses.

The UN estimates that more than half of the children in South Africa live in poverty. The HIV/AIDS epidemic which is sweeping the nation is leaving South Africa with a population of millions of orphans and vulnerable children. 1 in 5 children are orphans in South Africa and it is estimated that these figures will rise to 1 in 3 by 2015. (MRC, 2007)

This large number strains systems by which families and communities have traditionally provided care for orphans. Support for some orphans is being provided by a variety of government, community and non-governmental organizations, but this assistance reaches only a small percentage of those who need it.

The future of these children is usually not too bright as most are not adopted and have to fend for themselves, lacking work skills, many of these orphans and vulnerable children are destined to a life of poverty.

Jewels of Hope strive to provide a solution to this problem by using some forward thinking entrepreneurial ideas.

Jewels of Hope serves by designing marketable jewellery, sourcing and buying raw materials, preparing bead kits, providing training in the production process, child development and opening access to markets.

“We believe it is part of the solution to develop children from a point of despair to becoming confident and competent young citizens, empowered to build a self-reliant future for themselves”, says Janine Ward, Co-CEO  at Jewels of Hope.

 “Donating to charity is of course a wonderful thing, but the face of charity is increasingly taking an entrepreneurial character and thus it is crucial for the children to develop artisanal skills”, she added

Through this empowerment initiative, children are taught to be self supporting, they stop worrying about the next meal, but start building on self confidence and respect. By giving them the ability to provide for their family and others, they can feel a sense of accomplishment and pride and look forward to their future.

They have also created an environment within the organization where children are motivated to take proactive steps in preparing for their futures

Jewels of Hope provide tools to churches and community organizations to establish Connect Groups, with five children between the ages of 11 and 18 years, assisted by an adult who not only acts as a jewellery trainer but also as a mentor and support for the difficult life situations the children face. This group meets weekly and provides a means for personal growth, income generation and life skills for vulnerable children, without them missing school.

Jewels of Hope also help these children grow spiritually, by creating a safe space for them to work through various mentorship booklets with the Trainer, sharing life’s challenges and praying together.

 The organization began in 2004 as a single support group with 11 children from child-headed households, who made jewellery to support themselves. Ideas and systems developed and this group became a model which has been extended through partnerships to other locations in Africa.

Tshepo in Zeerust

Nthabiseng in the Jewelry of Hope offices in Fountainbleu 

Smangele and Nthabiseng in Durban

Mantoa showing her best smile ever

Lehlomela plants a biokinetics seed in the hearts of black women

Lebogang Lehlomela has built a lucrative business for herself

Although LEBOGANG LEHLOMELA bemoans the fact that her high schools lacked certain sports amenities like swimming and tennis, she made it to become a sport science graduate and a biokinetic, a rare profession and feat for many black people in South Africa at the moment. Her ambition now, apart from making her practice the best in the country, is to pilot the career to black women. She tells Thembi Masser about her mother’s wish that she becomes an engineer and Virgin Active.   

  

Lebogang, 27, obtained her degree - sport science - at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). Sport science was not her first love, she reveals, but once she found herself on the lawns of TUT she, out of the blue, registered for the course. Even she chose to go to TUT just because they were the first to respond to her application to be their student. So it was while in her first year as a student the bug to be a biokenitist clawed its hooks in her. She was intrigued by her physiology lecturer’s exotic profession, biokinetics.

“I asked more questions about this biokinetics,” she enthuses. “I was intrigued, fascinated.  The more I asked, the more I fell in love with it.”  But she went on to finish her sport science degree.

She explains what entails the sport science course:  Sports science is about conditioning players and there are there are two components, fitness and health. In fitness, she says, it is about flexibility, agility, strength, body composition and reaction time. The health component encompasses cardio vascular fitness and body composition.

It was after completing her sport science degree that she enrolled to do a year of biokinetics study. What irks her even now was that out of a total of 12 attendees there were only 3 black students.Biokinetics is more about prevention and treatment of injuries as well as chronic deceases. For complete healing biokinetists prescribe exercising for chronic diseases unlike medical doctors who prescribe medication for diseases.   

“In my second year of study I joined Virgin Active as a life style consultant to augment both my sport knowledge and my purse.’

To date she has been in practice for 6 months as the owner of Lehlomela Bio. “But before this I worked at Greenstone Life style for a while to get my mojo on.”

Now that she is on her own her goal is to more Africans at public clinics practicing as biokinetics. “Public clinics are not as well endowed with a complete set of health personnel as your private health care, so it is my quest to see more Africans studying biokinetics and to teach the public about the wonders of biokinetics.” This is important, she says, because many people rely on medication most of the time instead of throwing exercise into the mix after injury or a diseases attack.   

Lebogang started her schooling at the ST John’s primary school in Actonville, Benoni and then proceeded to the nearby William Hills High schools. Her choice of subjects at school, unknown to her then, pointed the way to her future career. She liked biology (although she loathed the plant part of it) and maths the most above English, Afrikaans, physical science and computer studies.   

“At the time I did not know what I was going to do after grade 12. My teachers too did not help much. Again, at that time there was no career guidance classes at the school.” But her mom was interested in her future. ‘She insisted that her daughter must be an engineer.”

Lebogang was a shy, quiet learner. “I was a studious learner, but I could have done better if there were swimming and tennis facilities at high school. You know. The best facilities are always at private schools, which most of us do not afford.”  

Lebogang with her class at the Mokoka library in Vergenoeg, Daveyton, Benoni