Intyatyambo Yesizwe teen mom is an organisation with 4 clubs in the different Cape Flats areas.We run empowerment workshops,counselling services, host Career days for teen mom's thereby motivating them to go back to school and support groups .We are there to be their BIG sisters who loves and accept them not judge or pose negative remarks on them.All we want is for them to thrive and be successful in life.
What skills and resources were you able to draw from the community for this project?
We have 2 unemployed Social Science graduate's who helps us with counselling and motivating the young mothers and accompany the teenmoms on their school preggy talks trips to empower young girls about their sad preggy experiences and we have also been supported by Ikamva labantu and Baby Bundles to give bundles to our teenmoms.Recently we have started on a crafting project for with our teenmoms whereby they design placemats and small nappy bags in order to generate income for themselves.
The challenges
The main aim for setting the project was to SUPPORT teenmoms.In our society everyone judges a young girl with a baby not even knowing the challenges the young girls experience. ..of loosing a zest in life...so we uplift and show them how beautiful they are inside and that they have a BIG role to play in our society and country.Our main challenge is to get FUNDING in order to be able to continue with the project and also provide some snacks for our teenmoms on the days we meet.
Addressing the challenges
The main HIGHLIGHTS in our project was to having teen mom's completing their leadership course...and having some switching from those deadly negative suicidal thoughts.We are also a safe haven for young teen mom refugees from neighbouring countries, who have no parents and relatives in South Africa.We embrace every young mother because they go through the same emotional trauma.We have support group for them...where they share their experiences amongst each other.
The achievements
We have young teenmoms who are so optimistic about their future...who want to go back to school and contribute financial in our country. ..and we have managed to mend some broken relationships between parents and teen mom's. Next year 4 of our teen mom will be going to varsity.To date we have 130 teenmoms in our organisation and everyday we get referrals for teenmoms.We have successfully hosted 3 Career exhibitions .
Johannesburg, South Africa