On Madiba Day Mamelani launched our Health Champions Programme to deepen the impact of our work in building healthier communities. A selection process identified “health champions” from the participants who have attended the Wellness Workshops in the last 2 years. These individuals are active in their comunities and are beacons of light to the people they work with. Since July we have been working with these inspiring women to strengthen the work they do in their communities.
The capacity building process has focused on strengthening these women as individuals, as a group, and as leaders in their respective communities. The workshops have looked at sharing individual stories, affirming strengths, identifying local resources and networks, building local role models, identifying gaps in their individual initiatives and local services, setting personal goals and visions and creating action plans in moving forward. The group is made up of 16 participants from 7 different communities, which will allow us to strengthen our connections to these different areas. We closed the 1st phase with an end of year camp in November, where champions were able to set goals for their mentoring process to begin in 2012.
Participant feedback shows that the impact can already be felt:
“It has boosted my self confidence to be reminded that I am also a role model in my community”. Another shared: “I could relate to others stories. Its good to know I am not the only one with hardships” and “I have learnt a lot from this process and I plan to use these tools with my women’s group”.
We are excited by the potential that we see in this programme and are looking forward to completing the first phase by the end of this year.
