Growing Children Straight and Strong

I am thankful for the parenting knowledge I have acquired through Vusumnotfo, especially because not only am I a parent at home, I’m also a Lihlombe Lekukhalela member and a Health Motivator in my community, which puts me in situations where I have to deal with a lot of child related matters. One lesson I took out of the class was about the term “empathy”, where we talked about going beyond just feeling sorry for someone, but further put yourself in their position, understand their situation before finding ways to help them.

There are two young girls living by themselves somewhere in my community, their mother works far from home and only visits them once a month. One morning I met one of the children on her way to school. She wore a sheepish look on her face and her socks were dirty – which is uncommon for school children to be dirty in the morning, especially on a Monday. Knowing her background and all, I thought I should find out how she was doing.

When I greeted her she replied me with tears, so I decided to let her go to school. When school was out, I went to her homestead to find out why she cried when I talked to her that morning. She said she cried because she was dirty and I could see. She also said that she had no washing soap, her mother had not returned home for a while and their food was no more.

I then asked her to come with me to my homestead and gave her some soap and foodstuff for her and her sister to cook. I also asked her to come to me if they seek help on anything, and that I was going to help them where I could. From that day on, they have been coming to me for assistance and I have been helping them. Their mother came to me one morning to thank me for the help I have been providing her children in her absence and that made me feel accommodating.

I’m really grateful for the knowledge on parenting, as I am more helpful to my community now. Previously I would visit people’s homesteads just to inspect their homesteads in terms of cleanliness and whether or not they have planted something in their gardens. I would do all my work from a distance, without bringing any attention to assess the real situation of a resource poor homestead.

By Busisiwe Nkambule

Spay Day

It helped me immensely to have my dog spayed. There is some troublesome animal that comes in the night and devours my chickens, but before being spayed, my dog would be away from the homestead when these attacks occur.

Now that my dog is spayed it stays at home and the wild animal does not get a chance to attack. The dog keeps an eye on my chickens and barks at every sound of sinisterly movement coming from the woods. My chickens have reclaimed their freedom and can now sleep on the ground without a problem. I also feel safe because my dog is always home and on guard for any intrusion.

After seeing the benefit of having my dog spayed, the people in my community have been constantly asking me when the doctors who spayed my dog are coming again. Although they know that they can personally bring their dogs to Swaziland Animal Welfare Society for the operation, organising the transport and budgeting is difficult for most people in my community.

By Thoko Phiri

Spay Day

My dogs used to wander around looking for female dogs and you would find that wherever they are they attack people who are trying stop them from fighting. The community police had already warned me many times about the dogs and eventually promised to lay charges against me should the dogs bite another person. The dogs were troublesome indeed because sometimes they would attack people passing along the road nearby. The dogs had a lot of offences.

However, after being spayed they now stay at home and look well fed. My relationship with them has improved. Previously, it was not easy to put a leash around their neck when I needed to take them to the dip tank, but now they come to me willingly. Now I feel safe and my homestead secure because my dogs are always home to protect us

There is just one dog which is not spayed because it was young at the time when I spayed the others; it does not look as healthy and full of life as the others are, I therefore want to spay it too once it has grown.

By Mandla Mhlabane

Spay Day

The dog that I brought to the spay day at Mshingishingini was skeletal and in very bad health, so it failed to wake up properly after its operation. The doctors ended by taking it with them to town, to give it extra attention. I lost faith that it would make it but surprisingly, the doctors brought it back in good physical shape – with no fleas and no ticks. Now I don’t reprimand it when it comes into the house, instead I call it and pet it and play with it like friends. If dogs knew how to talk we would have some fun conversations.

Spaying of the dogs helped us significantly, because another of my dogs that was not spayed died one day due to straying to other people’s homesteads at night and becoming a nuisance. I woke up one morning and found it dead in front of my house. It had vomited around the yard, so I sniffed at it suspecting that it has been poisoned with the habitual weevil tablet but could not detect a whiff of it. I therefore could not ascertain what killed my dog; however, by looking at the vomit I could tell that it had eaten left over food from neighboring homesteads.

When I found it, the puppies were still milking from their dead mother, which also made me realize that whatever my dog ate was not the medicinal kind of poison. I think whoever did this crashed bottles and mixed it with the food and the dog swallowed the bottles with the food and died.

What I am grateful for is that my other dogs will not meet this kind of death because since they got spayed, they have not left home for other people’s homesteads; even the younger dog, which is not yet spayed, has learned good behavior from the spayed dogs.

By Simangele Mamba

^{_{NOTE: In Swaziland, it is common for dogs to not be in good condition, be wandering around scavenging, killing and eating domestic chickens, stealing eggs, and fighting with each other. Given this, it is not uncommon for people to poison dogs.}}

Spay Day

Although I am from Emvembili community, I felt I should not lose this chance because I have had a spayed dog before and I know the beauty and good works of a spayed dog. For this reason, I asked a special request to be allowed to bring my dog to Mshingishingini community spay day.

My dogs have always been in good health but it helped me to get them spayed because there is peace at home now. Visitors would get no sleep due to the noise caused by the dogs that have come for the female dog on heat (estrus). It was also wearing for me to feed puppies because they ended up being too many and selling was always futile; people wanted them for free: Five of my goats got mauled to death by the dogs attracted by the female dogs, so I told myself that I want to be “stress free!” and spayed all my dogs.

On another note; I have the Jack Russell type of dogs, now that they are spayed they have developed a new habit; I do not buy weevil tablets for poisoning rats anymore because in the morning when I wake up, I find dead rats lying around on the yard. My dogs catch and kill rats, even the big rats. To me each day is like Christmas because I spayed my dogs.

By Gladys Ceko

Spay Day

It was beneficial for me to have my dogs spayed because they are beautiful now and they no longer wander off to other people’s homesteads. Even community people ask me how I did it.

When I am asleep at night my dog would go around eating waste food from neighboring homes, and I feared for it because some homesteads smear their left over food with weevil tablets to exterminate dogs roaming their homes at night.

What also pleased me about spaying my dogs is that I was getting irritated of the new puppies every now and then. The dog would give birth to cute puppies that all eventually die. I could not figure out why this kept happening because my dog took its vaccines appropriately. Then I learned that both mating dogs must have their vaccines, or the puppies will die. This brought me to the conclusion of spaying my dog, so as to give it and myself peace of mind.

By Thembi Mamba

Entrepreneurship

I would like to thank Vusumnotfo for teaching us that we can start saving from the little we have because some of us thought it only makes sense to save big amounts of money. I also saw the importance of being in a small group because I have been in a big group before and people used to disappear with our money at year-end. Nothing of that sort happened in our Vusumnotfo group.

I have a tractor at home that I let for hire. I used to keep the revenues from the tractor together with my personal money. On top of that, when my children asked for pocket money I would just tell them “take the coins in the tin”. Eventually, I would run out of money to service the tractor and would have no idea where the money went. Buying gas or paying the driver would be a challenge since all the money would have been consumed by family needs.

But now, I make it a point that when the tractor comes back home I put aside wages for my driver and his helper. I also put aside money for servicing the tractor. My children get pocket money from my pocket and when I’m out, they don’t get anything. That has helped me see profits and even have something to put into my bank account.

By Futhi Khumalo

Water Sanitation & Hygiene

Mr. Shabangu is chairman of the WASH committee for Lugongodlwane borehole, he lives just a few meters away from the Lugongodlwane river. For as long as he can remember, his family and his community have been fetching water for drinking and other purposes from Lugongodlwane river.

“I am a retiree who has worked many years for government, and part of my job was to purify water for drinking, and based on that I have a clear understanding of how dirty river water is. Sometimes when you go to collect the water, the evidence is obvious to anyone. You find all kind of repugnant rubbish floating in the river and some piled up along the river banks.”

“We have tried for many years to bring clean water to our community through members of parliament elected in the community but, term after term, our efforts were futile. We thank WaterAid and Vusumnotfo for finally coming to our aid, we now have clean and palatable water to drink. Water that we don’t have to first wonder what could be swimming in it, you just drink without hesitation.”

By Mr Shabangu _^(Right)

Water Sanitation & Hygiene

Miss Matsebula lives in Mkhuzweni area and is a beneficiary to the Lugongodlwane borehole project. She is also a member of the WASH committee for the borehole project. “We have struggled to get clean water for our community for a very long time. Every four years when a new member of parliament has been elected, we would approach them and ask for assistance yet failed each time. For all that time we were fetching water from the river that boarders our and it is dirty water.”

“This is why when I heard that WaterAid and Vusumnotfo have come to help us drill a borehole – I thought ‘thank god, finally our prayers have been answered.’ Then I got a little worried at first when everything was finalised and the process began; it seemed like the surveyor couldn’t find a good drilling spot, but when actual drilling session came, water was found! I was very happy about that. We now have clean water to drink, located almost central to the community. This is important to us because it allows the time and health to do other work that bring income to our families.

By Miss Matsebula

Water Sanitation & Hygiene

Mr. Matsebula is one of the 123 beneficiaries of Lugongodlwane borehole, he is also a WASH committee member of this borehole project. “We have been drinking water from the Lugongodlwane for years, sharing it with animals, and with those who wash their cars dump trash all over the place. I guess that is always the case if you don’t have to come back fetch the same water for drinking.”

“Drinking the river water became even harder after we went for training at Vusumnotfo because I got a better understanding that even if the water looks clear, it doesn’t mean it is safe to drink – there could be very small organisms that a naked eye cannot catch – and treating the water, even with all the training we’ve had, has not been a habit that grew with me, it is easy to forget” he laughs. “We really appreciate WaterAid and Vusumnotfo’s help with bringing us training and clean water. Thank you.”

By Mr. Matsebula _^(Left)