Lifeline Vaal’s Bella Maria Shelter, Skills Developement.

Few people are aware what Lifeline Vaal or Lifeline South Africa do for the community. With little and sometimes no funding the employees and volunteers take the initiative to and use their own skills to help and enhance the skills of the abused and sometimes just plain down and out.

Karlien Keyter is one example! Social Worker at Bella Maria Shelter for abused women, she initiates just such activities for and with the residents and clients at Lifeline’s Bella Maria Shelter.

Most of the women accessing the Shelter have very little or no skills. They are usually unemployed so have no access to funds to acquire skills.

Lifeline, in turn, sit with the same problem but the Social Worker and Housemother, with little or no resources, use their skills to empower these women.

One of the obstacles is that a lot of the women do not stay long so it becomes difficult for anyone from outside to provide skills over a period of time.

Another function for skills development is to keep the residents busy.

They are dealing with many emotional issues and there are a number of women at the Shelter at a time which can also create other issues.

Here is a small peek into what these abused women do as result of the initiative of the Lifeline staff trying their best for South Africa’s community!

These are some of the products of the activities done by the residents in Bella Maria Shelter. Challenges such as clients only staying in the shelter for a couple of days, weak endurance and emotional problems contribute to the challenge that a lot of the projects are left incomplete. The following projects were done by a number of residents throughout the last couple of months with the housemother and social worker assisting where necessary.

For more information on Lifeline Vaal go to:https://showme.co.za/vaal/showme-cares/community-development/lifeline-vaal-triangle/

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