By Mark Slessenger | Operations Director
Dear Friend,
We are encouraged by the early progress of MEP in 2017! One of the largest encouragements is the progress of many of the young men who have been released since we started the programme back in 2015.
Currently twelve young men have come out of prison and we have 9 working, two studying, with just one re-offending. This is not the main encouragement (although it is very encouraging!) - the main encouragement is the impact many of the young men are having on others, here are some updates:
Ernesto, released 2016. Ernesto has become a sought after motivational speaker and rugby coach impacting the next generation of young people through his story and life transformation. Just this week he has been running a three day outreach with one of our partner organisations and impacted over 1000 young people with his story!
Steve, released 2016. The Message developed a lifeskills programme (REFOCUS) to educate young people about the dangers of Gangsterism. This was a vision God birthed in Steve when he was in prison and he is now running REFOCUS in schools and communities across Cape Town. Just recently he said he was in a discussion with a pupil whose whole family is involved in gangsterism and he has asked Steve to mentor him and help him! How powerful is that!
Mtheteheli (MT), released 2016. MT is now going back into prison and MEP and training our students in business development and helping prepare them for release. The impact he is making in the class has been phenomenal and one young man said "we cannot believe this is the same MT who was in prison with us".
Jerome, released 2016. We placed Jerome into a partner company called Top Floor earlier this year. Just this past weekend he shared that he has started a prayer group in the business and they pray every morning. He was sharing excitedly that more and more of the workers have been joining the group in the mornings. He also shared he got into trouble for sharing his story with some of the workers when he was supposed to be working!
Simphiwe, released 2016. Simphiwe recently joined our newest enterprise initiative, the Mess Cafe! The Mess Cafe is a coffee shop and Simphiwe was trained as a Barista and was employed in his first ever job this last month. It has been a joy seeing him share his story whilst selling coffee and inspiring our customers. His most regular customer is Mr South Africa 2017!! Go Simphiwe!
I wish I could share more stories but I think you can get the idea of how MEP works....it's not about us investing in the individual alone and seeing transformation, it is also about seeing these young men transform others and create a ripple effect of hope and restoration across Cape Town.
I hope this encourages you and your support of this work. We look forward to telling more stories of transformation as we expect another five of our students to be released this year.
This next month we will be finishing our business module and our students will be pitching prison business concepts to Correctional Services. Post this will be focusing on public speaking and leadership principles with our students and continuing with weekly discipleship.
Thank you for all your prayers and support!
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