Month: January 2025

Bonamelo Melisizwe Foundation has taken a resolute stance in advancing support for girls and women through menstrual health awareness and education. Menstrual health awareness and education is crucial in South Africa, where many girls and women face challenges in managing their menstruation due to:

1. Limited access to sanitary products

2. Lack of education on menstrual health and hygiene

3. Cultural taboos and stigma surrounding menstruation

4. Limited access to healthcare services, particularly in townships, rural areas and Informal settlements.

Recognizing these challenges, our objective is to consistently play a helping hand in improving the accessibility of sanitary pads to young girls and women in townships and informal settlement communities. Collaboration is a cornerstone of our approach, enabling us to distribute an average of 140 sanitary pads monthly since September 2023.

A study by Stellenbosch University Hospital revealed that 30 percent of young girls in South Africa face period poverty, lacking secure access to basic period products. The repercussions are severe – one in three South African girls aged 9 to 18 miss several school days each month due to menstruation, compromising educational opportunities crucial for gender equality. This translates to an educational gap of about 60 days per year, putting these girls at a significant disadvantage in an already unequal society. Additional sources report that around 7 million South African girls lack access to affordable sanitary products, causing them to miss school and fall behind their male counterparts. The adverse effects of period poverty include the use of unsafe sanitary products, heightened health risks, and medical complications.

Bonamelo Melisizwe Foundation champions sanitary pad drives as part of our Girl-Child Dignity Preservation Campaigns. These initiatives are designed to promote well-being and empower girls and women through education and awareness in menstrual health, self-mastery, and skills development.

As a registered non-profit organisation, we are fueled by the conviction that “Everyone deserves a helping hand, and that’s why we exist. We exist to help.”

We are unwavering in our commitment to collaboration, understanding that together, we can achieve far more in the fight against period poverty.

To collaborate, contact us at: engage@bonamelomelisizwe.foundation

To learn more about us, visit our website at: https://www.bonamelomelisizwe.foundation/

The Youth Legacy Excellence Awards hosted by the City of Ekurhuleni were held recently in Alberton.

The chairperson and founder of Bonamelo Melisizwe Foundation, Bonamelo Moloi, was recently awarded at the inaugural Youth Legacy Excellence Awards in the youth activism and civil society category.

The awards, which were hosted by the City of Ekurhuleni, honour deserving youth for their innovation and outstanding career or community work.

“I am encouraged and honoured to have received this recognition as a testament to the impact achieved through pursuing a purpose greater than oneself,” said Bonamelo.

According to Tsholofelo Moloi, the foundation’s engagement coordinator, they have successfully impacted over 8 000 beneficiaries, including children, youth, and the broader community. This is despite working with limited resources.

Moloi said the foundation is committed to uplift communities through youth development and poverty intervention initiatives.

Bonamelo registered his NPO in January 2022, aiming to inspire a new generation of youth leaders to change their circumstances while addressing immediate needs related to poverty alleviation.

He served as programme director for National Science Week in 2017 and 2018, engaging high-level stakeholders such as the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation.

Through his NPO, he continues to lead various community development initiatives, earning the trust of residents and positively impacting their lives.

One notable program is the Kasi Coders Ekurhuleni, which provides essential coding and website development skills to 18 top-performing learners from four high schools in Daveyton during a six-week boot camp.

“Remarkably, a learner from a child-headed household has already begun designing websites for local businesses, showcasing the program’s transformative potential,” said Moloi.

The Foundation recently organised girls during its ICT Day where they introduced 24 girls from Unity Secondary School to innovative technologies, including self-driving cars and solar-powered fans.

“In response to the tragic drowning incident of Daveyton learners, the Foundation launched the Water Champions 2024 program to promote water safety education, collaborating with partners such as The Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation South Africa.

“This initiative has been instrumental in teaching children essential water safety skills, aiming to prevent future tragedies and raise awareness among young audiences,” said Moloi.

The programme benefitted Grade 10 and 11 learners from Unity Secondary School, Hulwazi Secondary School, HB Nyathi Secondary School and Dinoto Technical Secondary School.

The Bonamelo Melisizwe Foundation recently completed the pilot of KasiCoders, their coding and web development programme, as part of a broader digital skills development initiative.

Launched in Daveyton in partnership with Eazi Code and the Digital Learning Hub, KasiCoders is an innovative programme aimed at fighting unemployment and encouraging tech entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities by empowering youth with vital STEM education and ICT skills.

Bonamelo Moloi, the founder of the foundation, said they provided hands-on coding and programming experience to equip young people with the tools to break the cycle of poverty and thrive in the modern tech-driven world.

This inaugural programme benefitted Grade 10 and 11 learners from four high schools in Daveyton including Unity Secondary School, Hulwazi Secondary School, HB Nyathi Secondary School, and Dinoto Technical Secondary School.

“We concluded the programme with a fantastic awards ceremony, where our top performer and most improved KasiCoder each won a brand-new laptop, and the top three learners received fully sponsored programming courses to help them continue their journey in tech. These learners will have the opportunity to design their projects using the programming skills they’ve gained from KasiCoders,” said Moloi.