6 minute read
Educate a girl child, empower a nation
BY SINAZO MKOKO
On October 11, 2022, the world commemorates the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl Child (IDG). The day focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.
It was in December 2012 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognise girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.
The United Nations (UN) says that while there has been increased attention on issues that matter to girls, investments in girls’ rights remain limited and girls continue to “confront a myriad of challenges to fulfilling their potential; made worse by concurrent crises of climate change, COVID-19 and humanitarian conflict.”
The UN states: “Girls around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges to their education, their physical and mental wellness, and the protections needed for a life without violence. COVID-19 has worsened existing burdens on girls around the world and worn away important gains made over the last decade.”
The first children’s home/shelter for girl-children in the Western Cape, Ons Plek continues to empower young girls through their new programmes that are integrated very closely with each other to equip and prepare the girl children for their future lives. they are beggars. They have their own inside [sic] strength and talents.”
“They have to do the shopping under directions. If they arrive home with steaks, then we will say we can’t afford the steaks. Tell the shopkeeper that you shouldn’t have bought the steaks because now we haven’t got money for bread.’
“We also teach them how to make their own decisions and how to handle conflicts. They have discussions about how we handle this conflict in the house. We let them decide what we are going to do for Christmas and they’ve got to work it out again with our guidance. We teach them how to think and how to evaluate budgets and how to evaluate the decisions,” she says.
Touching on society’s role and the challenges they encounter in supporting the girl child, Pam said we still have a long way to go. “While I see a lot of efforts to support the girl child, there’s a huge attitude that we need to combat. I’ve seen this while taking our walks with the girls down the road, there will be a multitude of men who will be turning the young girls, shouting out ‘hello baby’ to children and that needs to change,” she says.
In conclusion, Ms Hendricks said the organisation has come up with good prevention programmes to ensure that young girls do not live on the streets. “I look at these children who come to us for assistance and how they leave with a completely different attitude and feeling empowered. I believe that people have inherent strengths and when you have access to it, nourish it and they will respond.”
Having joined the organisation more than 30 years ago with a plan to stay for a year or two, Director of Ons Plek, Pam Jackson, struggled to leave the young girls and felt like they still needed her guidance and, 30 years later, she’s still at the home.
“I realised that these girls were and are still full of resilience, life and spirit. They just want to make a change in their lives. Something just told me I committed myself. I still wasn’t going to stay 34 years. But you know, it’s a very interesting job. It’s never, ever boring. That, and the children have kept me there. There have been times when we were short-staffed and planned on closing and then we get a knock on the door and there’s a man with his twin girls aged four. He’s had to leave them at home while he goes to work because his wife is dead and then he discovers that the man next door is using a chocolate bar to rape them,” she says.
She added that she was going to close the shelter for a week and not take any more children but she couldn’t because the children needed this shelter.
Touching on the leadership and values they teach young children at the home, Ms Jackson says they are not there to disempower children. “These children have usually grown up in poverty-stricken families and so they are accustomed to cooking, cleaning, helping with responsibilities that my children certainly never had of that age, taking care of the other children, so we’re not there to take away those skills. We also are there to say to them that just because they are poor and haven’t had great opportunities, it doesn’t mean that they are beggars. They have their own inside [sic] strength and talents.”
“They have to do the shopping under directions. If they arrive home with steaks, then we will say we can’t afford the steaks. Tell the shopkeeper that you shouldn’t have bought the steaks because now we haven’t got money for bread.’
“We also teach them how to make their own decisions and how to handle conflicts. They have discussions about how we handle this conflict in the house. We let them decide what we are going to do for Christmas and they’ve got to work it out again with our guidance. We teach them how to think and how to evaluate budgets and how to evaluate the decisions,” she says.
Touching on society’s role and the challenges they encounter in supporting the girl child, Pam said we still have a long way to go. “While I see a lot of efforts to support the girl child, there’s a huge attitude that we need to combat. I’ve seen this while taking our walks with the girls down the road, there will be a multitude of men who will be turning the young girls, shouting out ‘hello baby’ to children and that needs to change,” she says.
In conclusion, Ms Hendricks said the organisation has come up with good prevention programmes to ensure that young girls do not live on the streets. “I look at these children who come to us for assistance and how they leave with a completely different attitude and feeling empowered. I believe that people have inherent strengths and when you have access to it, nourish it and they will respond.”
