Meet Sibongile Zwane
Sibongile Zwane, one of the xx Peer Educators who have been trained through Gone Rural boMake, within the Mahlanya community Individuals Group. This training, facilitated by SWABCHA, provides professional training to trusted individuals within businesses to be able to provide vital information around HIV/AIDs as well as how to counsel others in their community, while maintaining a high level of confidentiality.
Sibongile is well known to be a multi tasker, as she is also one of the Group Leaders on the Artisan Board for Gone Rural. She capacitates the rural women, community members and also the Gone Rural staff.
She also has her business on the side for the business skills training conducted for the peer educators. Sibongile says she would like to ensure that she lives in a healthy, happy community.
Edlangeni Neighbouring Care Point
Preschool kids from school enjoying their time playing and sharing what they learnt at school as they make their way home. These kids are full of laughter as they share the different stories their teachers shared with them at school.
Neighbouring Care Points (NCP) in the communities allows kids from the ages of 2 – 5 years old to come to the Care Point, cook food for them and also have educational games and learn through play.
Going to the Care Points makes the kids happy as they learn new skills every day, playing games using the utensils available around them. These kids from Edlangeni Community enjoying going to the Care Point and are excited to start in Primary level education.
Their favourite activities is collecting stones and making them different sets, helping themselves in the skill of counting. Playing on the swings and making new friends in the communities is their daily activity as they interact with the community members.
Kusile boMake saving group
Zandile Nhleko 53 years (Emdlangwe)|
Clothes business (hawker)
Zandile Nhleko started her business by making and selling fat cakes and snacks. Kusile boMake saving scheme was introduced to her community which she joined and started saving money she made from her business. She took a loan of R300 after just a few months of joining the saving scheme, which she used to start a new business of selling clothes and pads to her community members as well as to the saving scheme members during saving meetings.
The saving scheme has helped Zandile with growing her business as she now sells other products like different kinds of meat to her community. Her business is doing well as she makes enough money to sustain her family.
Siphiwe Dlamini
Grade 6 student, Siphiwe Dlamini 11 years of age. Siphiwe is incredibly enjoys English subject, and she looks forward to completing schools and studying to being a teacher. Her mother is one of Gone Rural artisans and Siphiwe loves practising weaving, as she also shares her passion for art work. She enjoys weaving on her spare time and her favourite sport is basketball.
Her English teacher shares on how Siphiwe keeps improving in her composition writing and she has been part of the top 3 in good skill writing. Besides doing well a school, Siphiwe is the first born of two sisters, she takes care of her sisters as the oldest by helping her mother. She makes sure they are ready for school every morning, “being an older sister is also part of my skills” Siphiwe says.
Mrs. Thandazile Dlamini
Name of the Individual/ Community: Mrs. Thandazile Dlamini
Location: eNjeni KaNdinda Chiefdom.
Thematic Area: Ntontozi Constituency- Manzini Region
Thandazile Dlamini widower of 39 years, started to live at KaNdinda when she got married in 2008. “When I came in to the area the standard of living was very poor such that most of the homesteads inclusive of my own did not have any sanitation facilities. The issue of collecting water was a different story as we used to walk almost two kilometres to and from collecting water, such that the issue of hygiene was not that much emphasised as water was used very sparely.
A thousand thanks to GRb and the donor Voss Foundation, as our lives has greatly improved, we spent less time in collecting water than we used to, thus we are able to dedicate the time into other activities which have led to the improvement of standard of living. Even the children now has more time to focus into their studies and they no longer absent themselves on regular basis as a result of frequently unwell.
Mr. Sabelo Dlamini
Name of the Individual/ Community: Mr. Sabelo Dlamini
Location: Bovane Mpini Chiefdom.
Thematic Area: Ntontozi Constituency- Manzini Region
Sabelo Dlamini aged 52 years, married has been living at Mpni since birth.
The life of the people of Mpini’s lives have greatly improved, as the community was lacking behind in development as compared to the other nearby communities. I personal is very grateful that the project was implemented in our area, especially the aspects of assisting our community with toilets, as a large number of homesteads did not have toilets.
The hygiene education classes we attended greatly improved the quality of life in the area, as after the training people began or notice or care about the health status of our community and the of the water bodies to minimize the spread and transmitting of water related diseases
Meet Zamakholo Matsebula
Zamakholo Matsebula, young bright lady with such enthusiasm for health change within her community. She is a proud Gone Rural Artisan, and is Gone Rural boMake’s Peer Educator in the Hhohho region.
She makes sure that the community members are capacitated on health issues and have the proper health referrals. Zama is excited to have her Counsellor t-shirt for visibility within the community. Gone Rural was able to provide their Peer Educators with these t-shirts through with the help of USAID. Having these shirts ensures that the community members are able to identify them when they are looking for support.
Meet Teresa Mamba
Sewing business (designer)
Teresa started her business before the Kutimela project was started, and offered Gone Rural Artisans training around the importance of saving and saving schemes. She used to patch clothes for customers in her community, so she had a good start to her business.
She would use the money she earned and buy material and sew different designs of clothing, such as aprons and school uniforms around Hhukwini. She now has big orders every year to deliver uniforms for Dlangeni Primary school and Mdzimba High school.
She started with a cash flow off R250 to buy the material and cotton treads. She then joined the Kutimela saving group and took a loan of R500 to boost her business.
Teresa’s business is now doing well as she is selling uniforms to different schools. There is a lot of progress as she makes enough profit, in addition to her Gone Rural income, to feed and keep her busy.
Gone Rural’s 750 rural artisan women and their families live in 52 communities throughout the 3 regions of Manzini, Shiselweni&Hhohho.
Our programs are aimed at empowering Swaziland’s rural women improving their position both symbolically with educational tools and instrumentally to bring about reform. In 2014 our programs reached over 20,412 beneficiaries, average implementation cost of $15 per beneficiary.
• 95% of our women know their HIV/AIDS status compared to 37% nationally
• We distributed 11,232 condoms to the communities per year
• Peer Educators reached over 12,000 members raising awareness about GBV
• Provided boreholes with hand pumps reaching 8000 community members
• Trained 50 preschool teachers on practical and essential tools to equip their 1030 children for school readiness
