By Phil Donnell | Funding Manager
By mid-June 2014, over 14 000 women were meeting weekly in around 950 Self-help Groups (SHG) in South Africa. The women range in age from their early twenties up to their seventies and eighties in some cases. Often young women in SHGs have dreams to improve their education and even study at tertiary level; many times they never get such an opportunity, mainly due to the high cost of tertiary studies. However, the Sinamandla staff were encouraged recently to meet one SHG member who had fulfilled her dream to study and become a nurse – and it was her SHG who helped her to achieve her dream.
Mamoketi, 27 years, is a member of Itsuseng SHG in Masakane, Mpumalanga, formed in 2009 by Ebenezer, a Sinamandla partner. She lives with her mother, father who is a pensioner, and her nephew. No-one is working in her home. Mamoketi passed her matric well but when she finished school her parents had no money for her to study at tertiary level. Eventually she joined her SHG in 2009.
In 2010 she found herself still without a job and her dreams of doing tertiary studies were not realised. So in 2011 Mamoketi approached her group members and asked them to loan her R15,000 so she could pay the deposit for a pre-nursing auxiliary course. Although her request was highly unusual, the group agreed to give her this huge loan, which she could repay over three years, and she enrolled to be trained as a nursing auxiliary in Johannesburg from 2011 – 2013.
With the little money she generated herself, she managed to make monthly repayments of R500 per month to her group and her family relatives helped her to come up with the balance of R10,000 to pay towards her school fees.
Mamoketi, above in her nursing uniform, says that in September 2014 she will be graduating and is looking forward to continuing further with her nursing studies in 2015. “My group has respect for me and we all get along so well, they are very proud that our SHG has produced a nurse; even other young members of my SHG have started thinking they also can pursue their studies. We are so thankful for the R2.00s that started us off.”
Many thanks for your interest and support. Sinamandla continues to work towards reaching its fundraising targets on GlobalGiving so please consider making a new donation in 2014 in order to help Sinamandla promote the SHG project in South Africa and welcome in more vulnerable women in poor communities to new SHGs in the months ahead.
Sinamandla sends out a monthly E-newsletter which you can subscribe to via our website and read more stories of SHG women. Please also do like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sinamandlaselfhelpgroup
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