Tembisa High School girls start support group for their peers

Peer Support, a school support programme founded by Tembisa High School learners in 2017 when they were in Grade 10, continues to help learners with their social problems.

These can be problems at home, in relationships or in the schoolyard.

Tembisa High Grade 12 learners Nicole Ranqata and Pertunia Dingasho have been running the programme since its inception.

Ranqata said they deal with issues of gender-based violence, including stress, physical abuse and emotional abuse.

“We do not offer counselling, but we talk to the learner and we report the problem to the teachers. If they do not attend to it, we then take it to the principal and thereafter the parents until the matter resolved,” said Ranqata.

Dingasho said they reach out with educational materials such as books.

“It is not about solving situations students face. It is about going deeper to the core problem.

“We wrote a poem about emotional abuse which speaks about a young girl who was emotionally attacked at home and finally came out about it,” said Dingasho.

The two teenagers have the support of the teachers, but sometimes face backlash from their fellow learners.

Their mentor is Sarah Violet Sithole from the Women’s Directorate Gender Office.

Sithole met them through the Take a Girl Child to Work initiative in 2017.

Sithole said they are doing great work and changing young people’s lives..

“They are in partnership with People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) and parents are invited to the meetings too,” said Sithole.

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