In South Africa, the unemployment rate is at 34.5% (compared to Canada’s national average of 5.29%). Poverty is rampant, and most families can barely survive. Although basic education is free, due to uniform and book costs, parents struggle to send their children to school regularly.
Many children are also limited to one meal a day. As of 2018, there were almost three million orphans, approximately 14% of all children in the country. Teenage pregnancies are also on the rise; moreover, these young people don’t have the job skills to support a young family and thus, fall into dependency upon the government.
Our goal is to build trust with community leaders, including local pastors, to help them address their community issues, especially poverty. We equip communities to start thinking of development rather than relief. We utilize Community Health Evangelism training together with business training initiatives such as Farming God’s Way, in order to empower the residents with skills to lift themselves out of poverty. Many have never experienced the joy of working and producing. However, the moment they realize they can, their dependency mentality chains fall off!
We have ministered in various African countries for over 16 years and have seen firsthand the devastating effects of poverty on numerous families. Having administered feeding programs and child sponsorships through ChildCARE Plus, we have also served as children’s and youth pastors. Over the years, we have developed and presented training initiatives such as: basic life skills training, children’s ministry training, leadership and team building workshops for youth, HIV/AIDS training, orphan care training, and workshops on creating compassion ministries, etc.
