Education South Africa Project #40136

Empower Women through the Self Help Group Approach

by Thusanang Trust

Project Report | Jan 9, 2025
Another Successful Year End Function and Giving Tuesday

By Ann Luther | Project Leader

All our Community Facilitators

Friday. 6 December 2024, dawned bright and clear, and saw taxis from all over Limpopo delivering 205 brightly-dressed, excited Self Help Group (SHG) members to Thusanang for the annual year-end Learning and Sharing Celebration. Members of the different groups were easily identified by their colourful group T-shirts, others wore traditional clothing and some were in their Sunday Best!
This year the Community Facilitators had arranged for various groups to present different items. Traditional dancing was the most popular, and even old ladies using walking sticks, got on to the stage, and joined in enthusiastically!
The main speaker was Pinky from Lima Rural Development Foundation, an NGO working all over South Africa but also in Sekororo, where a large number of Thusanang’s groups live. She explained what they do, what assistance they could give our groups, and spoke mainly about business development.
For the first time, we decided to present certificates to the best bookwriters, and to groups who had been functioning well for more than a year. These were joyfully received by the group members, and one lady was so excited, she did a somersault on stage, much to everyone’s amazement! Thereafter a few ladies shared their success stories on how they had been able to start small businesses and how these had changed their lives, and the standard of living of their families. At lunch-time, members from different groups were able to chat to one another, making new friendships and renewing old ones. All in all, it was a successful day, enjoyed by the SHG members, many of whom had travelled long distances to attend.
2025 presents new challenges with the ending of some funding and the resulting changes in roles for some staff members. We have decided to try to maintain the groups we have because we believe that this is an extremely worthwhile project which has improved the lives of hundreds of ordinary people living in villages all over Limpopo.
Tuesday 3 December was “Giving Tuesday” where GlobalGiving shared 75 000 dollars proportionally to different projects, according to the funds raised by them. We would once again like to thank those of you who donated so generously to our project. Your contributions make it possible for our Community Facilitators to continue their work and we are so very grateful to you all for this. Please consider making recurring monthly donations, or a donation in lieu of a birthday present to a friend.
We look forward to another successful year in 2025. Happy New Year to all of you!

Chris from LIMA

Pinky from LIMA was the Guest Speaker

Traditional Dancers

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Help Rural Women Help Themselves

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Sep 11, 2024
Hot Off the Press! Another Cluster Level Association (CLA) is launched!

By Ann Luther | Project Leader

Angie explaining some CLA concepts

In my last report in May, I spoke about the new Cluster Level Association (CLA) we had started in Sekororo. Today we launched our first CLA in Bolobedu.What a successful meeting that was! The 20 members of the CLA are all fired up and ready to advocate for improved conditions in their various communities! Our Community Facilitators (CFs) are also very excited about this CLA, while at the same time, working hard to establish new groups in the various villages which make up Bolobedu. We now have 4 CLAs in the different areas where we work. The CFs who started CLAs a while ago, attended a CLA meeting with our colleagues at "Keep the Dream 194" on Monday, and they benefitted greatly from the exchange of ideas they had there, and are eager to make their CLAs more effective in their own communities. We, at Thusanang, feel that we have been supporting SHGs for more than 10 years now, and the time is right to encourage the added focus on community matters while still trying to improve the standard of living of the rural women who make up the SHGs.

Other exciting news is that our Project Officer (PO) has just given birth to a baby girl, so she is on maternity leave. We are very keen to welcome the new baby. This means that Vivian, our former PO, who is now back on Early Childhood Development (ECD) training, is spending as much time as she can with all the CFs and Self Help Groups (SHGs). We recently appointed 3 new CFs, Dinah, Joyce and Virginia, in Bolobedu. We hope they will be able to make a difference in their communities, and will enjoy their time at Thusanang.

We continue to encourage our SHG members to try to start small income-generating businesses in their communities as this makes paying back their loans so much easier. We recently had a man (there are only 2 in the whole project!) in one of our SHGs who started a business making wreaths for funerals. He supplies burial societies in Limpopo with wreaths and has recently expanded his business to include Mpumalanga as well. He now employs 4 people to help him in his business. So not only has his lifestyle improved greatly since joining the group, but also that of 4 other previously unemployed people as well.

We have not taken part in any GlobalGiving Fundraising Campaigns this year, but we continue to be extremely grateful to our recurring donors and any once off donations we receive. Your generosity helps us to help so many people. Thank you very much.

Funeral Wreaths made by an SHG Member

Members of the Bolobedu CLA

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Help Rural Women Help Themselves

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May 14, 2024
Our Community Facilitators in Sekororo form a new CLA

By Ann Luther | Project Leader

Vivian explains CLA Concept

It is a full year since I introduced two of our Community Facilitators, Mokibela and Mavis, to you. They are doing really great work in Sekororo, forming new SHGs and supporting the old ones. They are both very active in their communities and have been very successful in encouraging group members to start their own small businesses. These businesses include selling food and snacks at schools and in the community, growing vegetables, chicken farming, making mats and brooms, beadwork and carpentry and upholstery. The income from small businesses is really important in enabling women to improve their standards of living. The CFs are each in charge of more than 30 Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and they recently formed a Cluster Level Association (CLA).

The SHG is the first level of the Self Help Group Approach and it is all about "Me and My Family". The second level is called the CLA and is about "Me and My Community" . The last one is the Federation and that deals with "Me and My Government."

The first CLA in Sekororo was launched at a meeting in Turkey 1 on 4 April 2024. About 40 members from 11 groups attended the launch. Ann, Asnath and the CFs from Bolobedu went to support them.Mavis started by introducing all the Thušanang staff to the meeting. Vivian (the Project Officer) then explained the CLA concept to everyone. The CLA would consist of 2 representatives from each of the 11 groups present. Mokibela called for the representatives from each group and they shared their plans for the first meeting. We hope that the CLA will go from strength to strength and will give the members of the different SHGs a voice in their community as well as bringing the needs of the community to the attention of the relevant authorities in that area. We wish them every success in this new venture.

We have 5 other CFs who are working in different areas and I will introduce them in future reports. We are hoping to appoint 2 new CFs in Bolobedu soon. Watch this space! We haven't been very active in the GlobalGiving initiatives this year, but we are very grateful to all our donors, especially our recurring ones as we would not be able to support our CFs without your support. July Bonus Day, when GlobalGiving matches your donations, is coming soon and we will be writing to you about that and hoping that you will be able to support us then. Thank you all.

Members of the new CLA with CFs and Vivian

Vegetable Garden

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Help Rural Women Help Themselves

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