After all is said and done, the question would be, what is to be done to alleviate the woes of the African girl child, especially from GBV. It is suggested that women must run their women’s organisations especially non-profit organisations to help themselves and also to help other needy women and girls.
The Pearl Foundation, intends to play this vital role of encouraging women to take initiatives of self-reliance and self-sufficiency into their own hands to escape from the dependency of their male-counterparts who in turn abuse and rape them.
These initiatives when well run and the necessary capital found, will help to improve the status of women in society at large. As the aim is for the campaign, is to realise their full potential through their own efforts and work.
The Pearl Mtyi-Mofokeng Charity Foundation is poised to partner with other women’s organisations with a common vision with it, to develop and run simple to complex projects of self-help and self-sufficiency to fight GBV and other forms of ills perpetuated against women.
The conclusion based on the observation and findings of the research, the Pearl Foundation, believe that with common efforts and practical projects, these socio-economic projects can contribute towards society’s paradigm shift on girls and women. It could also assist to awaken the anima in men to respect women as their equals.
The theory that could prove decisive is that of African tradition, called ‘Letsema’, of communities helping other needy communities or girls helping other needy and disadvantaged girls. The suggested initiatives are briefly mentioned in the following paragraphs.
Scholarships
One of the biggest challenges identified above affecting girls is the lack of access to education, as such one of the most important initiatives of the campaign will be to source for scholarships, especially for the poor girls and rural girls. Women in the sciences and technology field tend to be low and this has now perpetuated the stereotype that women are not very good in that field, and this can be changed when women have access to education funding, to enable more women to enter the field of sciences. As Egbo (2005) argued, women’s access to educational opportunities is critical to social development, particularly the sustainable variant.
The Foundation will support any initiative or programme aimed at training girls and women in entrepreneurship to stop women’s exclusion from the economic processes of the country. In order to increase the success rate of African women entrepreneurs, training will be the best intervention. Providing entrepreneurs with business skills to help them grow their firms is vital (Titley & Anderson-Macdonald, 2015). In order for the training to achieve the desired results, it needs to be facilitated or underwritten by institutions that are reputed for their excellence when it comes to entrepreneurship studies. These are universities such as the UNISA, University of Johannesburg, Wits University, Tshwane University of Technology and University of Cape Town. The idea advocated by the Rise of the African Girl Child-Meisiekind is to identify girls and women that want to become businesswomen and undergo entrepreneurship training. The women’s organisations, especially community based need to be mobilized to work for this common purpose as a collective, of course, the Pearl Foundation will be interested to work with all these like-minded entities.
In South Africa, women business owners account for only 19.4%, whilst for instance in Uganda its 39.6%, in Botswana it is 38.4% and in Ghana its 36.5% (Mastercard, 2021). This shows that our country is still lagging behind other African countries in this respect! The facilitation of African women’s entrepreneurship training will go a long way in increasing the percentage of women that are business owners. Aligned with this rationale, the campaign must include role-model projects that train girls especially the downtrodden, to emulate the great and successful women personalities in South Africa, viz the professionals, professors, medical doctors, scientists, engineers, successful businesswomen, famous women athletes or sports stars, good politicians, farmers-boer, building constructors, astronauts, military scientists, policy experts etc. The government and business, ‘Take the girl child to the workplace’ must be resuscitated and be continual.
Facilitating the adoption of girls from poor families
Girl children that are born into poor families in South Africa or the ones that have lost their parents due to a numbers of factors, namely HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 or orphans find it hard to make it in life, especially girl children. Girls for instance are faced with a difficult life choice which in some cases include sleeping with older men in order to get financial assistance or just to survive. The stakeholders in this campaign need to collaborate to facilitate the adoption or link poor girls to well-up families who will be able to provide them with a better future. Government monitoring of this will be vital to protect those in such a programme. Hushion, Sherman and Siskin (2006:222) argued that adoption gives children of all ages a chance for a better life and the opportunity for a better future.
The Rise of the African Girl Child-Meisiekind campaign will collaborate with the government programmes like, Government Parenting Programme, including the Temporary Safe Care Facilities for children, Foster Care placements, Shelters For Abused women and the Khuseleka One Stop Centres etc. These entities exist but are wanting in activity plans and practical implementation, thus needing the intervention of civil society participation. All these envisaged practical programmes must follow all the government regulations and prescripts, and where there are unnecessary constraints and bottlenecks, legal assistance should be sought, eg pro bono.
Girl Guides and Girl Scouts programs
These children’s programmes could be improved and modernized, to help girls that have behavioural challenges, or girls with discipline issues, or those struggling with being overweight, or those facing substance and alcohol abuse problems. These are aimed at lifting the self-esteem of the African girl child and could help them to abstain from premature sexual experiences which usually lead to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
Soup Kitchens for needy girls and women
The popular soup kitchens for needy girls and women will be promoted. A soup kitchen is defined as a place where free food is served to needy and homeless or destitute people (Stevenson & Waite, 2011:1380). All these should comply with the laws of the country. The initiative is envisaged to help protect destitute women from abuse by strangers who may see them as hungry easy sexual targets.
PREPARING FOR NELSON MANDELA DAY – 18 JULY 2023 – NALEDI, SOWETO. By NOREEN’S-KITCHEN
More Projects
Health projects, these will, for instance, procure health and sanitary items from registered business entities, and distribute them free to impoverished girls and women, former drug addicts, former women jail-birds and rehabilitated alcohol abusers to return to normal life again.
Save havens and temporary shelters, will be supported by the campaign.
Raising Funds projects will be encouraged by the campaign.
Sister-sister letsema projects, will be introduced for successful girls to help other needy girls. For instance, helping the girl-headed families, the girls under the care of old poor grandmothers, or the suffering girl next door. These will be the raison d’ etre of the campaign, that is, girls giving other girls a helping hand.
Umuganda – “Coming to work together in common purpose for the community for free.”
The Zulu cultural reed dance, of promoting celibacy among the teenage girls will be explored to see whether that could enhance the power of girls especially over their bodies against exploitation. The reported cases of babies having babies, where between ten and fourteen years old girls gave birth to 319 babies around July to December 2021 in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, is a national scandal and shame and with such deliberate campaigns, that could be averted (CITY PRESS, 20 March 2022).
The rural and urban gardening, would be promoted among the participating girls and women. Agriculture is the source of life. The campaign will look into water bore-holes projects to be led by ‘water-girls’ to support communities.
The production of the methane gas from cow-dung, for boiling water and cooking will be explored, requesting the university science students to help with this rudimentary process. Solar- energy and water rain-harvesting should be explored to make it available for girl children to use and be relevant especially in the villages. All these is to enhance their social power and economic power in the society.
Government support systems, this campaign must link poor girls with different government agencies who are there, and girls must be introduced to them.
The Sixteen Days of Women’s Activism, in South Africa and the 25th November day of the UN International Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women, must be the annual women report of how far they have come in alleviating the social status of women, and not to be the usual symbolic gesture to women’s woes.
Martial arts and sports for girls is vital and their self-protection and need to be encouraged and supported by social programmes.
Funding strategies. There is a deliberate and focused fund-raising programmes for the Rise of the African Girl Child-Meisiekind campaign. Sources like the rich philanthropist families locally and abroad, businesses, leaders, celebrities, well-resourced foundations, some government entities, sympathetic big NGOs locally and internationally will be explored to assist the African girl child campaign, especially against gender based violence and rape which is very rampant in our country. All kinds of help will be welcomed to solve the plight of the women and girls against abuse.
Conclusion. The desired end-state of the Foundation with this campaign is to participate in empowering the women and the girl children especially against abuse, rape and GBV. It is very clear that there is no panacea of all the woes of the African girl child in South Africa, but small interventions by all can help a great deal.