Know Your Local NGO: Women of Hope South Africa
"There is an ongoing campaign of sanitary pads and cosmetics, school shoes campaign and donate-a-blanket campaign."
Know Your Local NGOs is a new initiative of Express that attempts to bridge the gap that might exist between the community, corporates and local organisations.
The aim is to make local organisations that continuously make a difference in the community known to the public.
These organisations include non-profit organisations, non-government organisations and non-profit companies.
This week, we feature Women of Hope South Africa, which was established in 2017 and registered in 2019.
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What does the organisation do?
“Empower women spiritually to deal with day-to-day challenges that hinder them to break from their respective pasts. Provide guidance on dealing with emotions that can limit women to move forward in life. This is done through workshops and conferences. We sometimes invite professionals to come and share with us their knowledge and experience to deal with emotions,” said the founder of Women of Hope South Africa Precious Tsolo.
“We impart knowledge and skills to empower women economically through business development, financial management, image, personal branding and job interview skills.
“Our focus is to bring hope through group participation and presentations from different professionals in different areas including business, health, education and industries, among others things.”
Where is it based?
“Norkem Park, but we are in the process to expand our footprint due to the requests from the women who attend.”
Who is the organisation’s target market, who does it aim to help?
“Women from any background, but the common thing we share is pain. If you know you have experienced disappointment, abuse and loss, Women of Hope is for you, irrespective of race. Whether you are employed or unemployed, we all experience pain in different ways and stages in our lives. We aim to help every woman to move beyond pain and past failures to live a purposeful life. Our purpose is to create a safe platform to discuss challenges as women from different backgrounds, learn from each other and support each other to deal with our pain.”
What are some of your ongoing operations/campaigns/outreach programmes?
“We have meetings every third week of the month. There is an ongoing campaign of sanitary pads and cosmetics, school shoes campaign and donate-a-blanket campaign. During lockdown, we started the groceries campaign and have assisted 50 families with groceries.”
What are some of the prominent challenges faced by the organisation?
“Finance is one of our major challenges as we don’t have any financial support, and most of the activities depend on the contribution from women in the organisation. If we could get financial assistance, it would help us make a great impact in our communities and societies.
The second challenge is transportation for women who live far from Norkem Park. We have ladies as far as Soshanguve, Soweto, Katlehong and Krugersdorp who have been consistent in attending these meetings. The third one is that we are unable to appoint people who can assist with the administration as well as follow-ups with those who attend our meetings to constantly check their needs. This is done on an ad hoc basis because the leaders of Women of Hope are employed and commitment is given to their employers during the week.”
What are the organisation’s needs?
“Financial assistance, volunteers to assist with managing our brand and administration, trained counsellors and transportation and catering for meetings.”
How has Covid-19, regulations, restrictions and lockdown impacted the organisation?
“We were unable to hold our monthly meetings as planned.”
Contact details
info@womenofhopesa.org.za or WhatsApp 061 536 6005.
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