A GEM in the rough (South Africa)
Many families in the grey, dusty village of Ga Thoka in South Africa's Limpopo Province live without access to basic services like water and sanitation. There's no electricity, and health facilities are almost non-existent. Yet Ga Thoka is on the brink of transformation, thanks to the efforts of some of its younger citizens.
Through the UNICEF-sponsored Girls' Education Movement (GEM), girls and boys are highlighting the plight of orphaned and vulnerable children and helping to create a cleaner, safer environment.
“Girls and boys need to find solutions together”, says fifteen-year-old Bethuel Mothapo during a workshop at Klass Mothapo High School. “It's through the GEM that we are able for the first time to listen properly to what girls think and feel about us. It has taught us to respect everyone's rights and to work together to make our community a better and safer place for both girls and boys.”
The groups use drama, music and sporting events to publicize their messages, and work with local radio stations and partners like UNICEF to broadcast messages on gender and HIV prevention. Where once there was silence, there's now a chorus of voices speaking out on previously taboo subjects like sexual violence and AIDS – as well as a place for young people to voice their fears and ideas for the future.
In a community where teenage pregnancy and early marriage is common, a key strategy has been to include boys from the very beginning. “When we first began, boys just would not talk,” says Albina Kekana, a member of the South African Girl Child Alliance, who works with the Provincial Department of Education to support the development of GEM. “It was only after training boys in life skills and through sensitization workshops on gender and masculinity that they began to share their stories with their peers, particularly girls.”
Limpopo Province now has over fifty GEM clubs, and boys often make up half of club participants. In Ga Thoka, the young have made remarkable progress among parents and community elders, even convincing headmasters and a local priest to publicly support the initiative.
Seventeen-year-old Millet Nkonyane, a local GEM facilitator, says “GEM groups do not have to wait for the problem. GEM can also prevent the problem.” Giggling, Millet makes a sly allusion to the jam and bread that’s handed out as a free staple to hungry children at school. “To get more members, we'll tell them that they'll get GEM and bread,” she says, reinforcing the programme's goal of nourishing communities in need.
