Betty is changing the world

Some people spend most of their life not really knowing their purpose until one day they wake up and decide to change the world.

One such person is Betty Nkoana, director of the Hope Park Community Centre in Munsieville.

Betty’s husband, a pastor, who was one of the inspirations for the centre, died in 2009.

In 2010 she was working with a church and saw the many foreign national single moms in the Munsieville community. She started talking to them and finding out what problems they were facing.

One of the issues was the children who were being neglected because of the circumstances of their families. Betty started a baby bath initiative every Wednesday, and mothers brought their children for a bath at the church.

She also gave each child a clean pair of clothing, and took the old pair home to wash and redistribute the next week. This way she could keep an eye on the children’s well-being.

Then she decided she needed to help the mothers. A micro lending business was formed and all the mothers contributed a certain amount of money. They then gave that money to one of the women to start her own business. After a year she paid the money back with 10 per cent interest. The money was then divided among the women to be used over Christmas and when the new school year started and funds usually ran low. Then the next woman would get the money to start her business, and so it continued.

Then came the next big step. She partnered with the Thoughtful Path charity to open the Hope Health Campus in 2011, which has been growing ever since.

The centre helps the community in various ways. They have a nutritionist who teaches the community about the benefits of vegetables and fruits, there are classes to teach residents how to cook the food and they get help to start their own vegetable gardens. The seedlings for these gardens are also provided by the Hope centre.

Then they have a teen centre where teenagers can come and get help or just talk. They give talks on topics like safe sex, bullying, drugs, developing bodies, teenage pregnancy and coping with the stress of everyday life.

There is a clinic with two professional nurses where children can be brought to get immunisations, be dewormed, get vitamins and get regular health check-ups. The clinic also provides family planning services to the community.

They have two after school centres in the community. The one centre helps about 90 children after school with homework and reading every day and the other one helps about 60 children. Recently they also helped 50 women in the community to get proper training to work in early childhood development (ECD) centres.

Another one of the projects they run is the No child gets left behind programme. Children who are in the country illegally are not allowed to enrol in school, so during the day they go to the centre where they get taught. Betty then assists them to get the required papers to go to school.

In November 2018 a child was electrocuted by an illegal connection while playing soccer with his friends. Betty was extremely upset and she decided to build a safe play environment for the children of the community. They are currently building a fenced soccer field where children can play safely under adult supervision.

There was, however, still one problem she wanted to solve. She saw the need for another clinic in the area as mothers did not bring their children to the clinic because it was too far.

On 4 February they opened a satellite clinic in another part of Munsieville and have already dewormed children at four EDC centres in the area.

The clinic is open from Monday to Friday from 7.30am to 4pm.

Betty is also looking for volunteers to help out at the after-care centres. If you would like to contribute to the centre, just visit or volunteer, you can phone Betty on 061 483 8312