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Community
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programmes,’ Everson says.
Although a few men have attended the parenting
programmes, this number is small, and its growth is
prevented by deeply entrenched gender roles.
The programmes’ parenting approach is different to
the way many parents in the community were raised
Since completing Seven Passes’ adolescent programme,
during which she was encouraged to share her feelings
with her son, listen attentively to his, spend dedicated
time with him and respond to situations calmly, their
relationship has vastly improved. ‘Every morning, I hug
him and I tell him, “I love you” – and we never part in
anger. He can talk to me about anything now – except
sex,’ she says with a laugh.
The programmes’ approach to parenting is different to
the way many parents in the community were raised.
‘It takes some getting used to,’ says Joshlin Grootboom,
who signed up for the book-sharing programme with
her little boy Skye, who is just under two years old.
This programme teaches parents how to read picture
books to their children, guiding them on how to help
their children engage with the stories. Grootboom also
learnt the power of affirming and encouraging her son:
how to turn his mistakes into positive reassurances.
While the benefits have been tangible, the parenting
facilitators conducting the programmes have
experienced no shortage of challenges. Their work is
time-consuming and emotionally demanding. They
are responsible not only for their day-to-day duties, but
for ensuring that the educational facilitators who work
with the children in the after-school programme are
familiar with the positive parenting techniques. ‘We all
have to practise what we preach,’ says Wehr-Damons.
Absenteeism is also an ongoing issue. ‘Most of our
programmes run for two or three hours once a week
in the evenings,’ says facilitator Sharren Buys, ‘but
often, the majority don’t show up.’ While this is found
in parenting programmes around the world, it is still a
source of frustration for the facilitators.
On Mandalay Farm, parenting programmes have been
offered during the workday to ensure that parents are
able to attend, despite working long hours. Packaging
house employee Manica Everson and her fellow
employees Elizabeth Jumat and Shane de Swart speak
highly of the work of Seven Passes. ‘Our relationships
with our children are much better since we did the
‘One of the biggest problems in the community lies in
the relationship between men and women,’ explains
Gould. ‘It threatens to undo what we’re doing in the
parenting programmes.’ ‘A lot of fathers think that
parenting is the mother’s job,’ says Fisher. ‘The men
work; the rest, they leave up to the women.’
Because of deeply entrenched gender roles, few men
have attended the parenting programmes
‘As we continue to do this work, we start seeing what else
is necessary,’ says Gould. ‘The after-school programme
made us realise that children needed to be emotionally
supported at home, and now we’ve realised that we
need to address imbalances in gender roles, too.’
In 2018, Seven Passes will be collaborating with
Sonke Gender Justice to implement its MenCare+
programme. This initiative aims to educate fathers
on their roles in fatherhood and caregiving; engage
them in sexual and reproductive health, and maternal
and child health services; and provide counselling to
those who use violence in their relationships with their
partners and children.
Programmes of the kind being offered in Touwsranten
– not only the parenting programmes but also the
after-school programme – don’t lend themselves
naturally to impact assessment. The variables are
immense, the content deeply personal and sensitive,
and respondents sometimes unreliable. Nevertheless,
establishing indicators of success is an important
means of demonstrating the programmes’ efficacy in
dealing with and preventing violence.
The number of parents participating in the parenting
programmes might be one such indicator; the number
of children attending the after-school programme
could be another; and the number of children
equipped with the grades, skills and self-belief to
attend university a third. Each of these indicators has
seen improvements over the years. Looking back on
the past decade of work, Gould says: ‘Something has
shifted dramatically here.’
Amelia King first started working at Seven Passes in the
after-school programme, an experience that helped
her secure a full-time position as a parenting facilitator.
King’s assessment of the programmes relies less on
tangible data and more on what she is seeing in the
town’s homes every day. ‘These programmes,’ she says,
‘teaching parents to have a good relationship with
their children – they have the ability to change the
whole community.’