PROJECT #168

Project #168 | Empowering Vulnerable Children in South Africa

Our partnership with Zimele

One Day’s Wages partnered with Zimele USA/Zimele Wethu Foundation to empower 167 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) ages 7-21 in the communities of Swayimane, rural Durban, and Msinga. Zimele implemented sessions, trainings, and workshops focusing on the holistic healing of each beneficiary being reached. Topics discussed among these sessions related to creation of body awareness, understanding how to prevent and intervene with acts of abuse, education on the Zulu culture and values, and the improvement overall for the children’s self esteem, self worth and work skills assistance, mentorship and integration into savings groups.

Zimele’s grassroots approach empowered local leaders to be at the forefront of creating change within their communities. The Zimele women participating in this project were equipped to build upon their care of the OVCs as agents of transformation in their work. The women will continue to build up the children through love, care and material support, empowering them to actively participate in ending the cycle of abuse in their communities, becoming responsible adults who appreciate work, and equipping them to engage their various skills for livelihoods through the savings based Self Help Groups.

Our collective impact

Children empowered

Students increased school attendance

Children received lessons on abuse

Life Skills Retreat

The Life Skills Project closed with a two-day retreat during which the children engaged in various activities with a focus on the Memory Box Lessons on grieving and dealing with loss. Among the Memory Box lessons was a family tree where children were required to draw a family tree of everyone living in their households and indicate what they felt about each household member. This was given as homework on day 1 of the retreat. The children came back with elaborate trees, designed each in a unique way, colored with crayons each color symbolizing an emotion attached to the family member on the tree. It was interesting to see their creativity, their playfulness depicted through pictures. What we did not anticipate however, was how serious the children took the exercise. Drawing the family tree was opening up a pandora box of emotions. Children depicted each family member and the relationship; in addition, the children highlighted what they felt for a specific family member and why they felt that way, which allowed them to begin the process of healing.

Thank you for making this possible!

Our movement is grassroots, to us that not only means the work on the ground is led by local leaders with the support of the community, but it also means that we raise the funds for our projects through everyday donors just like you. In addition to all the donors that gave $25, $100, or $250 and the campaigners that ran a race or donated their birthday to raise funds, we also want to thank our generous business, school, and faith sponsors who believed in our work and joined the movement.

If you want to support future projects like this you can make a donation to our gender based violence fund.

                 tiktok logo

 

One Day's Wages is a grassroots movement of people, stories, and actions to alleviate extreme global poverty

©2022 One Day's Wages is a registered 501(c)(3) organization | Tax ID #26-2566653 | Privacy policy | Terms of use

P.O. BOX 17575 Seattle, WA 98127 | Contact us