Report from BHW South Africa Partnership Facilitators Following Visit 17-19 June

Key Person: Florence Mbokazi

We visited the Masoyi Bright Hope Centre and, on arrival, joined the team for their regular time of worship. A local pastor, Pastor Welcome, shared an encouraging message with the team.

The team meets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8–9 am. Pastor Welcome joins them to encourage them from the Bible, and they spend time praying and worshipping together. There are 25 people on the team, working across a range of roles including cooking, caring for orphans, home visits, facilitating the Peer-to-Peer secondary school programme and administration.

Recent Events

Context

The unemployment rate is high in this area. South Africa has a social welfare system but most of the people and children that Masoyi Bright Hope work with don’t have an identity card so they are unable to get any type of assistance from the Government in the way of financial and medical support or a pension.   

Home Based Care

They deliver home-based care services to 67 patients who are unable to access healthcare facilities due to illness, disability, or old age, and those who cannot get help as they do not have identity cards. Their caregivers conduct regular home visits to monitor health conditions, administer medication, assist with daily activities, and provide essential health education. They focus on supporting people living with HIV (PLHIV), TB patients, the elderly, and individuals with chronic illnesses. They provide food parcels to chronic patients and provide health education on HIV/AIDS, TB, and other chronic conditions. 

Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme

This supports 237 children who have lost one or both parents or are living in child-run households. They provide essential services that ensure the well-being, development, and protection of these orphans. The OVC programme provides daily feeding, orphan care, educational assistance, psychosocial support, leadership programme for OVC, and if there is a need they also build houses for child run families. They help normalise grief, increase understanding and overcome stigma with orphans and vulnerable children. 

Peer Education Programme

This is a school-based initiative that educates on HIV prevention and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) affecting many young people. These issues lead to trauma, school dropouts, and unsafe environments for learning. The programme trains selected students as peer educators, who educate the other students through discussions, activities, and mentorship. 

The young women who run this team are all voluntary but receive a very small amount from the UK trust to help with their expenses. They use material from Gold Peer Education Development Agency in Cape Town.

HIV Testing Services Prevention Programme

For the past 23 years, they have been committed to HIV prevention, care, and support services, among the vulnerable. Over the years, they have seen the growing impact of HIV/AIDS on adolescents and young people. This age group remains at high risk of infection due to a lack of information, social pressures, gender inequalities, and limited access to youth-friendly health services.

This programme equips young people with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to protect themselves and make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. 

Life Skills Development for Young Mums 

Many out-of-school youth and unemployed adults struggle with financial independence due to a lack of skills and job opportunities. To break this cycle of poverty and dependency, they run a Skills Development Programmes focused on:
• Sewing and Tailoring
• Gardening and Sustainable Agriculture

These practical skills not only provide these young people with income-generating opportunities but also promote self-reliance, resilience, and long-term economic empowerment.  They used to teach computer skills, but the computer kept getting stolen so they stopped this.

They had 24 sewing students graduate in 2025. One young man who learned to sew went to school of design and has started a business as a designer and tailor. If they are willing to go further, they encourage them to apply to the school of design. Other graduates do small sewing repairs on their own machines and earn a small amount. They also take the sewing students to visit a place in Nelspruit who sew uniforms, and emblems to give them ideas.

The Masoyi sewing teachers are still sewing for Kruger National Park gift shop.  They currently have an order for curtains for Kruger Lodges.   They source their fabric for the sewing classes from off cuts from fabric shops and factories in Nelspruit.

A previous worker from Masoyi now has his own business making perfumes, diffusers and hand lotions. So, they are going to get him to teach the group how to make these products.

They are conscious that they focus on vocational training more suited to girls, so they are keen to pursue ideas for training the young men. 

House Building Programme

They have built nine houses for child-run families and repaired damaged homes in the community. These vulnerable children often live in unsafe, overcrowded homes, struggling to meet even their most basic needs.

Many child-run households face housing conditions that expose them to harsh weather, theft, and health risks. Structural damages that make their homes unsafe and uninhabitable with no parental support, leaving children vulnerable to exploitation and poverty.

They have a sponsor from the UK who fund the building and repairing of houses. A three-bedroom house costs about R$115.

Garden Programme

They grow vegetables in the garden at the Centre, which provides child-run households with access to fresh produce. They train families and children on small-scale vegetable production, empowering them to grow their own gardens.  Mbuso oversees the garden and is also the Caretaker at Masoyi.  No one is trained in Foundations for Farming.

Early Childhood Development Centre

This runs every weekday at the Masoyi BH Centre for 68 preschoolers.  It was originally set up for teaching ECD to orphans but is now partially funded by the Government which is helpful for them.  The funding covers breakfast and lunch and a stipend for volunteers.   

Personal Stories

Catherine 
We met Catherine who is the enthusiastic principal of the Early Childhood Development group at Masoyi.  She has grown up through the Masoyi programme as an orphan.  She was the tenth child in a child headed home. After going through the programme, she started as a teacher in the preschool and studied during this time to get her ECD qualification before she was appointed the principal. She has a good heart for the children and Ma Flo is very proud of her.

Sindiswa (42)
Sindiswa was an orphan, grew up in a child led home and went through the programme. She was the oldest sibling and looked after three younger children. After leaving school she worked at the preschool and is studying for her teaching diploma. Once qualified she will be able to teach in primary schools.

Lerato (28)
Lerato was an orphan in a child led home looked after by her older sister, after her grandmother passed away. She is doing her teaching diploma at the same time as she is working in the preschool. She wants to become a professional teacher and is thankful for the work at Masoyi.  

Ideas for the Future

Financially things are tight so they would like the ministry to become more self-sustaining, so it does not depend so much on donors. They are looking for ways of generating income.  

One of their cars is used to transport children to school for a small fee from 6 am each day.  This generates a very small profit. They would like to fix the white van to add to this to the business.

We discussed ideas on how to generate funds for the ministry through small business ventures besides the sewing group. They would like to empower their people, as the team all work either for a very small stipend, or no financial reward.

They have been thinking about starting a small block making business.  

Mbuso, the caretaker and gardener, currently raises a couple of pigs to generate income for himself, but there are many other leaders who need a source of income generation.

Current Issues and Challenges

They are struggling financially to maintain the work. There is no extra money for repairs. In 2023 they had three vans that were not usable as they needed maintenance. These are still sitting there, although they are hopeful that somehow, they can get one of them operational to use as a small taxi business. 

The loss of their accountant Yvonne 18 months ago had an effect on the team. Over the last few years Ma Flo has had to scale back the work and size of the team due to a lack of finances.

Prayer and Praise Points

Praise

1) The successful transition of getting the preschool licensed
2) A good team who are involved at Masoyi 

Prayer

1) Succession plan for Ma Flo
2) Ma Flo’s health
3) Vocational training for boys
4) Employment for the young people leaving school
5) Small business strategies to support the ministry and team

Comments

The annual BHW budget is US$12,100 which helps fund the food for the orphans, care kits for HIV/AIDS testing (medication, gloves, etc), transportation, support groups and a volunteer stipend. The only other regular funder apart from BHW is a small trust called Masoyi Trust (UK). They focus on funding the building and furnishing of houses for those who require them and also support the Peer-to-Peer education in a small way.  

They use some of the BHW funds to pay for the feeding programme for the 237 orphans, but last year this has had to be reduced from five days to three days due to increased costs of food. They are wanting to increase this back to five days, if possible, as restoring the additional two feeding days would improve the nutritional wellbeing of the orphaned and vulnerable children in their care. We recommend that the budget is reviewed to allow for these additional two days so these orphans can be fed for five days a week.  

They are also considering submitting a couple of proposals to start small businesses to generate income for the leaders and the ministry.