Reaching out to underprivileged children
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday November 21, 2022 06:00
In 2007, Mpolokeng Setswammung founded The Voice of a Child Organisation in Oodi to remove children from the streets by engaging them in activities that would help shape their behaviour and mentor them into responsible youth.
The Voice of a Child Organisation supports underprivileged children with grassroots education development.
This week, Setswammung told Mmegi that the NGO has programmes in various villages such as Matshelagabedi, Mmokolodi and Charleshill. The project has been led by young people who have seen it as important to transfer their skills and talents to the younger generation. For the youth, the NGO provides volunteering opportunities for those who want to develop their potential in working with children and go further to study in the same field.
Many of the young children participating in the programme are those whose parents are either unemployed, working at Ipelegeng, or surviving on social grants.
“To enforce the sustainability of our programmes, we work with parents as we believe that they also play a big role in the development of their children and also are the core influencers in deciding their futures. “We engage parents through parental guidance workshops and other social activities where we help them to realise the need to take responsibility in building the development of their children holistically not only academically,” she explained. Setswammung added that children need to be supported in different ways to ensure that when they grow up, they are fully aware of the world and its challenges. She said their minds have to be guided to think independently and responsibly from a tender age.
She also pointed out that The Voice of a Child Organisation helps parents to identify their children’s potential. Parents are also helped to look for jobs to improve their wellbeing and that of their children. The NGO has found that some parents have been stuck at home because they did not have anyone to look after their children while they go out to look for work. At Oodi centre, The Voice of a Child Organisation helps about 50 children.
These were identified through the help of local authorities such as Kgosi, the Village Development Committee, and parents. The majority of the children being helped are those whose parents could not afford to take them to preschool. According to Setswammung, the programme is very beneficial to those children as they are offered a happy and safe platform to develop and get to the same level of competency as those who have been offered the privilege of attending formal preschools.
“Our activities include out-of-school education for children aged three years and above,” she said. “The Department of Non-Formal Education in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development recently adopted us.
“We also have an after-school assistance programme for primary school kids who are struggling with their schoolwork. “Besides academics, we involve children in character-building activities and talent development in order to motivate them and stimulate their good behaviour.” She added: “I can say that since our establishment, we have witnessed a great change in the behaviour of children and their attitude towards education. “Parents also have shown a lot of improvement in their involvement in the education of their children.” The Voice of a Child Organisation has faced its fair share of challenges. During the peak of COVID-19, the NGO was forced to close down one of its centres.
In addition, finances are a perennial challenge.
“We are a non-profit-based organisation, and we end up not achieving all our objectives because of a lack of funds. “Besides that, we have a challenge in that some people do not take up our services because they think we will block their children from getting enrolled in schools, or because they fear that we are taking over their jobs.
“These challenges do not impede us, however, and our intention is to cover as many areas as possible, especially the remote areas.” The NGO is also tackling the trend of bullying, a rising national crisis the formal education sector is grappling with, as seen in the numerous incidents that have gone viral of late on social media. For Setswammung, bullying can be resolved by properly educating children at their formative ages. “ As an organisation, we are very much concerned about the amount of bullying that is happening in schools and we are making it a point that we educate the children we work with right from a tender age and provide guidance as they grow to primary schools and further,” she said.
The Voice of a Child Organisation will hold an anti-bullying campaign before schools close to raise awareness and call parents to seriously engage in changing their children’s characters.
“Our programme is open to any child even from beyond villages in which we are active.
“The only challenge would be that we do not have facilities where we can offer accommodation to those coming from far.
“We also do not have transport to assist them to travel from their homes to our premises,” she said. In her spare time, but also as part of efforts to create a legacy for the NGO, Setswammung recently wrote a book entitled The Sun Still Shines to encourage parents to be vigilant in raising their children. The book also extols parents to avoid exposing children to acts that may harm their future.