The Wellness Programme continues to share essential information and support with people from marginalised communities to enable them to take action to improve their own health and the health of their families and communities.

In the last quarter we have completed our 2nd training cycle of the year. We reached over 100 women in this cycle from the following organisations – Barcelona Community group, Zusakhe and Heavenly Promise, Ikamva Labantu, Wola Nani, Iliso Lomso, Sinako and Izandla Zethemba.

Facilitators were able to share essential health information with these women. During the sessions, facilitators also shared stress release techniques with participants and individual clients were seen, to deal with their personal problems outside of the workshop sessions.

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 focussed on strengthening these women as individuals, as a group, and as leaders in their respective communities. The workshops have looked at sharing individual stories, identifyingual 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.

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.

Mamelani facilitators partnered with Amandla EduFootball in support of their Women's Day event in August. Healthy cooking demonstrations were facilitated for those attending the event on the day.