Health
Children who have access to health and nutrition in the first 1000 days of life are more likely to thrive.
Connect Network affiliates focus on various aspects of maternal and child health. We recognise that healthy mothers are less likely to be at risk and are more able to care for their children.
Our Quality Improvement System offers two modules that focus on health and wellbeing, the People Care module and the Child Wellbeing module. Our Equipped to Serve training equips carers to help mothers through their crisis pregnancy, and our Let Your Light Shine training assists carers and mothers to know how to live healthily with HIV.
Our goal is to bring affiliated organisations who offer health services to mothers and children together to learn from each other, and to empower mothers and carers working with children to know how to access health services, provide good nutrition for their families and do basic first aid in each of the communities we work in.
Crisis Pregnancy
Over 15,000 school-going learners fell pregnant in South Africa during the 2017 academic year. These young moms are often vulnerable children themselves. To find out more about what Connect affiliates are collaborating on to help women with crisis pregnancies, click here.
HIV / AIDS
If mothers have access to HIV medication and counselling they are more likely to love longer and their children are less likely to be orphaned. To find out more about our Let Your light Shine Training for carers and mothers, click here.
Healthy Sexuality
Sexual Abuse of children is one of South Africa’s most serious violent crimes. Rape is one of the most under-reported crimes because of a lack of support for rape survivors and a reporting process fraught with problems. This results in South Africa having the lowest conviction rates in the world. Many children suffer severe secondary trauma, this refers to the distress suffered due to the difficulty involved in reporting a sexual offence, as the perpetrator is often a family member or close family friend. Due to the nature of the offence this trauma is often more severe than the primary trauma. Human trafficking mostly of women and children for sexual exploitation is rife, it is common for four kids a month to go missing from a local community.
Follow these links to see how our network is responding:
• S-Cape
• MeCAHT
For more information visit www.stoptrafficking.org.za.