iThemba Projects

We focus on community-centered development in ECD (early childhood development) and youth mentoring. We believe that when communities like this one (which has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world) are restored, everyone benefits. Through over 10 years of partnership in Sweetwaters, we've learned that rather than bringing in loads of stuff, the best thing we can do to help is to listen and learn from the community, and empower them as they find solutions to the challenges they face. In our ECD mentoring work, we partner with local creche teachers and parents and help them improve their ECD skills - and we now have teachers who have graduated from our programme mentoring other local teachers! In our youth mentoring work, we teach Life Skills in over 15 schools, and along with a team of 50 local teen volunteers, we provide kids and teens with safe places to ask questions about life, and get the support they need to make good life choices. We've seen that long-term ...