As daily life carries on for the mothers, luckily also the project gains momentum. Every week we have a new mother coming, usually recruited by word-of-mouth. As expected, each session there are absentees as well. As suggested earlier, life happens, and the women try to make the best of it. Some of them attend once a month, others have been coming every single Saturday since last year September. It is growing into a group of mothers who are each other’s friends and confidants. But lest not forget, their progress in fostering change in their lives is also slowly picking up. After many sessions, informal conversations, interviews and discussions, they have come up with a list of their main issues and wishes in life. Particularly basic needs issues are raised. A lack of income and poor housing stand out. In addition, wheelchairs, sufficient information on the care for their child, finding a school or care centre for their child, and a lack of public transport for the disabled are mentioned frequently and put on the list. Now is the time to choose. What sort of project or projects would they like to set up and how?
Though housing issues are on the top of their list, they decide that achieving change in this department would be almost futile and extremely time-consuming and long-term. Therefore they choose to rather spend their time and resources on something that they deem more viable, which are income generating activities. Baking, sewing, a vegetable garden; all sorts of activities are deliberated. Eventually, as two of the women have extensive experience in sewing, they decide to set up an official sewing project with which they hope to gain an additional income. And to start of the project on a good note, they agree to all invest 200 ZAR (14 EUR) per person. This to me is remarkable as they only get 1400 ZAR per month on their Care Dependency Grant from the government. Let’s hope that their investments will go a long way in achieving change!
Though housing issues are on the top of their list, they decide that achieving change in this department would be almost futile and extremely time-consuming and long-term. Therefore they choose to rather spend their time and resources on something that they deem more viable, which are income generating activities. Baking, sewing, a vegetable garden; all sorts of activities are deliberated. Eventually, as two of the women have extensive experience in sewing, they decide to set up an official sewing project with which they hope to gain an additional income. And to start of the project on a good note, they agree to all invest 200 ZAR (14 EUR) per person. This to me is remarkable as they only get 1400 ZAR per month on their Care Dependency Grant from the government. Let’s hope that their investments will go a long way in achieving change!
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