At Msinga, Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal you will find eThembeni, the Zulu word for “place of hope. It is a partnership of churches, government, hospitals and organisations that has originated from the local DRC and URCSA and has grown to be a strong community-based structure strengthening the weak and the affected.
eThembeni teams’ vision is to promote a healthy, supportive and Godly lifestyle within the broken and fractured communities of KwaZulu-Natal.
The drivers of this movement are community facilitators, who are selected from the unemployed youth within each targeted community. Although they are unemployed, they are dedicated Christians, who want to make a difference in the community by being salt and light, sharing love and God’s Word.
The programme capacitates the community facilitators with skills to facilitate the following material in the communities:
- DARE, which is a programme that deals with men/boys related issues
- DIGNITY, that deals with women/girls related issues.
- Yolo, a Youth Life Coaching programme, that encompasses both boys and girls on life skills, building their self-esteem and assisting in making right choices as they maneuver around in their life journeys
- Veritas Light, which is composed to facilitate discussions amongst the youth about God’s communication with man, the value of the Bible and healthy ways to read and apply the Bible.
- The World Needs a Father (TWNAF) on parenting.
- We partner with Prof. Wentzel Coetzer from the NWU to train two of our community facilitators in Biblical trauma counselling. They are both busy with their third assignment. In December they will attend a provincial youth camp with 200 youth to run a discussion panel and test the water in terms of the way forward. Sne Mbhele and Lwazi Khanyile are central in driving this program, both being unemployed graduates with B.Soc. Sc degrees.
- Mentorship leadership. Each community facilitator is tasked to recruit 5 volunteers amongst the youth in the community, who would assist as “gap-year” assistants.
Each programme has its own guidelines and requirements for facilitation. The topics covered are very relevant and apply a Biblical World View holistically to everyday life challenges, faced by our youth. So doing the Kingdom of God becomes alive to our youth. In application the programmes are merged and tailor made to fit our ministerial needs.
Find the detailed progress report of these programmes from May to October on pages 3 – 33 HERE.