Gender Equality Zimbabwe Project #32723

Mentor the Vulnerable Girl Child to Impact 1000s

by Makomborero

Mentor the Vulnerable Girl Child to Impact 1000s

Project Report | Apr 16, 2024
New Connections

By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager

A crazy moment - Mentors breakfast meeting

We’ve just come to the end of a wonderful 1^st term at the Girl Child Mentorship Programme. This is a particularly important term for us as both mentors and mentees are navigating new relationships and making new connections. We started the term with a wonderful part-planning and part-social breakfast meeting with all our mentors in January. It was a great time of talking about the heart of volunteering with Mrs A and sharing a lovely breakfast.

Come February, our 3 teams were all ready to go out to our 3 schools in the high density areas and launch the programme for 2024. In total, we have 30 mentees aged 13-15, 10 at each school. We want to thank our partner schools for choosing mentees for us year in and year out. It’s no easy feat to select just 10 girls out of the many who may need the programme. Already, it’s been a great pleasure working with these 30 mentees. Some of them started out very shy and a bit unsure but all of them are loving being part of the programme and we have enjoyed seeing them grow in the 8 sessions that we were fortunate to hold. Most of them learnt to crochet for the first time and speaking in front of other people is a skill that most mentees are still getting used to.

The 8^th session was our much loved end of term lunch. The team made a delicious meal of rice, chicken and coleslaw and there was plenty to go around! Dessert was ice-cream and home-made chocolate cake (thank you Joan!). We had an inspiring talk from Mrs A and Miss Mercy taught about maintaining good personal hygiene with inconsistent water supply and very little resources. We were so fortunate to have been able to give each mentee 3 sanitary pants, a face towel, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Art therapy saw us end the day. This time only 2 mentees had painted before, it was completely new for the rest and they really enjoyed creating some pictures with a nature theme! These end of term lunches are so important to us. They are our opportunity as a team to try and pamper the mentees and show them how special they are. Our mentees are often facing challenging day to day situations. Their normal day often starts very early, involving chores such as walking to fetch water, warming water for bathing using open fire or gas stoves, cleaning the house, doing laundry etc and all before school. Sadly three meals a day are not the standard amongst many families, many families have one or two meals a day and a lot of them are meatless. The lunch programme is a real treat for them and a time to completely relax.

At the end of term 1 we sadly said goodbye to Sharon and Percy, two of our longest serving mentors. Both are past Makomborero students who have recently graduated from the University of Zimbabwe. They are now embarking on their chosen careers and can no longer commit to the Girl Child Mentorship Programme. We want to say a heart-felt thank you to both these incredible ladies for all the Saturdays they sacrificed for the last 6 years and every life they have touched. The team will miss these two ‘big sisters’ and we wish them well for now and the future.

We are in the thick of school holidays and we are busy getting ready for Term 2. We are looking forward to a fun ‘crocheting refresher’ with the mentors and many more sessions as Term 2 is the longer term of the 3. Term 1 has been all about making new connections as well as planting and building friendship. Thank you to all who made this possible!

One of our groups at the end of the session

Miss Mercy with outgoing Sharon and Percy

Mentees with their goodies at the lunch

Someone looks pleased with their painting!

Attachments:

Breakdown_of_expenses_for_Girl_Child_Mentorship_Jan24_to_Mar24.xlsx (XLSX)

6 Attachments

Permalink

Dec 18, 2023
An emotional goodbye

By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager

Mentors and mentees pose for a final photo

Our final term at the Girl Child Mentorship Programme was emotional! It doesn’t get any easier to say goodbye to 30 lovely girls that we have mentored for the year and we will miss this wonderful group dearly.

Sessions during the final term

Our final term continued in much the same way as the other two and we are grateful that we could provide this consistency to the mentees and something to look forward to every Saturday during the term. Our topics this term focused on helping the mentees start practicing some of the skills and lessons they learnt earlier in the year. We were proud as we watched them take turns to engage in public speaking, a lot of them would have neither had the right skills nor the willingness to do this when the programme first started. At the end of the term, each of the three groups of mentees picked litter at their schools. We love this final session where the mentees first learn about the importance of looking after the environment and then go out and give back to their schools.

End of year lunch

As always, we ended the term and the year with a wonderful lunch. We treated the mentees to hot dogs and salad. It was a welcome change from the usual cooked meal although we did get warned by some of our outgoing mentees not to do it too often! Then there was cake and custard afterwards, all accompanied by good conversation as the mentees were now truly comfortable with each other.

We were so pleased to have been able to present the mentees with certificates in celebration of all they had achieved through the year. It was a first for the Girl Child Mentorship Programme and we hope to do this annually as it was so reaffirming for the girls!

Each mentor and mentee was presented with a treat-filled mug as a reminder of their time at the mentorship programme. This was thanks to one of our trustees who fund-raised amongst friends to make this special gift happen. The mentors and mentees exchanged some touching words of thanks and encouragement as they presented the mugs to each other. There were lots of tears and hugs in the room. A very emotional goodbye indeed!

We ended the wonderful day with art therapy – t-shirt painting. Once they got into it, the girls really loved this and were so happy to be able to take their art work home. We hope they will wear their t-shirts often and that they will be reminded of the great times we shared over the year!

Thank you!

Thank you all! Donors, supporters, one-off fundraisers, volunteers and friends of the Girl Child Mentorship Programme. Another successful year would not have been achievable without your support!

A final reflection

Each end of term, we like to get feedback from our mentees. It helps us to know where we are getting things right and where we can grow. To end, here is some of the feedback from the end of this term:

‘I learnt to be a leader and to play my part in my family.’ – Tanaka, 14 years old

‘My favourite session was the ‘Giving Back’ session. I made my school clean!’ – Rukudzo, 15 years old

‘I learnt to create memories, spread love and become creative.’ – Yolanda, 14 years old

Mentees show off their certificates

Treat-filled mugs

Mentee about to enjoy hot dogs for lunch!

Attachments:

Breakdown_of_expenses_for_Girl_Child_Mentorship_Jan23_to_Dec23.xlsx (XLSX)

5 Attachments

Permalink

Aug 20, 2023
The learning journey continues

By Mercy Mutandwa | Operations Manager

Some mentees at the end of term lunch

What a wonderful term we have had with our Girl Child Mentorship mentees. We feel that over the term we have come to know them a lot better and tackled topics that brought about lots of open discussions not forgetting much fun and laughter. It has been a pleasure to watch our 8 new mentors blossom in every way. They continue to form amazing bonds with their mentees and develop in their own growth, they have given us amazing feedback and we are so pleased to have them on board.

Attendance from mentees has been very good, with only a few finding challenges here and there. Sadly, we've had two girls who have dropped out due to other commitments. Our aim is always to complete the year with every single mentee that we start with but we are very aware of the challenges they face such as heavy house chores, baby-sitting, religious meetings and sometimes a lack of support from guardians.

The topics taught and discussed this term have focused on working with the mentees to get more of an understanding of their self-worth. In addition, mentees had open discussions regarding what part they play in society, their family units and even in their own lives. The feedback from the girls has shown us that through these sessions, they have grown in confidence and have seen the importance of working as part of a team. We are so proud of the journey these girls have allowed themselves to go on this term!

Our term ended on a high note with a lovely lunch prepared by staff. Once again, mentees from the three different schools got to meet up again after three months and enjoyed each other’s company. Mrs Albertyn delivered a comforting yet thought provoking session around the topic of ‘Facing hard things’. We also had an Oral Hygiene session in which the girls learnt the basics of looking after their teeth and honest discussions were had regarding how finances can affect this. Apart from that there were lots of games, delicious food and a lot of fun. We are so grateful to have been able to send each mentee away with a toothbrush and toothpaste, thanks to your donations!

We said an emotional goodbye to four of our mentors who are off to university outside of the country on scholarships. While we celebrated their achievements, we are really sad that they won’t be part of the team anymore. We are thankful for all they poured into the programme and we wish them all the best for now and the future!

Thank you to all our host schools, heads and senior teachers for supporting us through this programme. Thank you to all our mentors for making it happen every single week! Thank you to all our sponsors and donors. We simply could not have done this term without you! We are looking forward to our third and final term which will begin in September.

Mentees showing off their toothpaste and brushes

Mentor Tinaye with mentee crocheting

A happy group during one of the sessions!

Permalink

1 2 3 4 5 6 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.