Stepping Stone International Advocates For The Empowerment Of Children

By Lorraine Kinnear

Stepping Stones International (SSI) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that was formed in 2006 with a focus on creating an enabling environment for orphaned and vulnerable children, as well as youth to grow and build their futures through youth empowerment, family enrichment, and advocacy for child protection. The organisation also seeks to capacitate service providers. Through its holistic programme model, which combines life skills, leadership, psychosocial support, and community mobilisation, it instills confidence and self-sufficiency in young adults.

SSI began as a small centre in Mochudi, serving a small fraction of the community, thereafter opening a bigger centre in 2002 that has been happy to serve more youth in local communities and districts. Today it operates in various communities and districts across

Botswana, including Letlhakane, Gaborone,

Goodhope, Tutume, and Ghanzi.

The Responsible Citizen (TRC) had the pleasure to sit with SSI's Communications Specialist, Lebo Ashley Phillip who shared a lot about the organisation's work.

TRC: WHAT IS THE CORE BUSINESS OF STEPPING STONES INTERNATIONAL? LAP: We are a non-profit organisation primarily focused on unlocking the potential of vulnerable children and youth between the ages of 12-25 through holistic development, strengthening families, and activating sustainable opportunities for them to become self-sufficient. Our vision is to see a world where children and youth are empowered, becoming leaders, and achieving their dreams. Our focus areas include youth empowerment, family strengthening, strengthening youth services, as well as child protection. In all aspects of our work, we engage the community from design to implementation and monitoring.

For example, with our 'Grandmothers Programme,' we design support groups led by community grannies who are interested in building community programmes; they come up with activities demonstrating how these programmes will be implemented to meet

our different focus areas. In this regard, the ownership lies with the community. We have also engaged and built capacity in youth change agents who have learned to advocate for themselves. In our USAID-funded project, D.R.E.A.M.S, the young women and girls participate in peer-led safe spaces to build their social assets. TRC: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE ACTIVITIES AND INITIATIVES YOU PLAN ON UNDERTAKING SOON TO CREATE AN IMPACT IN THE LIVES OF BATSWANA? LAP: Dithunya Tsa Rona is an award-winning, ground-breaking documentary drama conceived by Stepping Stones International (SSI). It focuses on improving parenting in Botswana and creating safe homes for children, free from abuse, and fear. It follows a social worker investigating teen pregnancies in a rural African village who stops at nothing, including fighting her inner demons, to protect children from abuse. To date, the docu-drama has done well on the global stage scooping three prestigious awards internationally. It is currently available on the SSI YouTube channel. The strong collaboration for the film was led by the Ministry of Local Government and the Department of Social Protection.

Stepping Stones International realizes the need for counselling and social support in the country, therefore we have trained 25 psychologists, police officers, and counsellors from NGOs in a trauma counseling program called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Moreover, SSI is training young lady counselors in a programme entitled Friendship Bench, to support peers in social issues.

As SSI, we would like to see the USAID-funded D.R.E.A.M.S programme and the FACET, 'Finding the Leader Within,' leadership programme and economic advancement programme expand to help more young women and girls strengthen their social assets and build their skills for employment or entrepreneurship. SSI has a dream to support the Government of Botswana's vision to reduce youth unemployment. TRC: WHAT IMPACT HAS SSI NOTED SINCE ITS INCEPTION? LAP: As SSI, we recently celebrated our biggest milestone to date, which is our 15th anniversary. Looking back over our 15-year journey, the tangible impact on the lives of our participants is astounding.

To date, our programmes have assisted our youth in returning to school, finding work, and instilling an entrepreneurial spirit in many of them, resulting in many of them beginning their businesses. We started with humble beginnings with only 7 children in a small room in Mochudi. As we speak, we are currently serving more than 7000 children ages 9 to 17 and youth ages 18 to 25 and their families in 6 districts in Botswana.

Other achievements include a 70 percent success rate of our young graduates from the FACET-funded finding the Leader within Leadership Program either attaining employment or starting a business. More than 2000 orphaned and vulnerable children and their families have received needed services based on household

assessments. We continue to support adolescent girls and young women through a partnership with USAID and NAHPA on DREAMS with over 7000 girls building their assets in safe spaces to date.

Our team builds the child's environment by working with parents and the community within which the children live in. More recently, we have collaborated with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in adapting an evidence-based parenting program called Pinagare. More than 500 families have participated in the program, and we hear positive feedback from parents such as, "I tell my child I love her all the time now;" or "The family now involves our children when making our family budget." Our Grannies program provides support and educates grandmothers and grandfathers in various communities about child protection, how to identify gender-based violence, income generation, and conducting community dialogues. Through this program, over 735 grandmothers have formed support groups and have been trained to identify gender-based violence and HIV cases to mobilize their various communities for action.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Basic Education and the University of Utah Reading Clinic, SSI has trained and observed 640 primary school teachers and trained 6 master trainers in English literacy to be used in schools. TRC: PLEASE TAKE US THROUGH SOME OF THE RECENT COLLABORATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS THAT YOU BELIEVE CONTINUE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO SOCIETY. LAP: Critical partnerships include ministries, donors, media, private sector, and other civil society organisations (CSOs). SSI cherishes the relationship with various ministries and most recently is partnering with the Ministry of Justice, Defense, and Security on large-scale research on child justice. The research will lead to creating a model for child justice, child-friendly courts in particular.

SSI is also partnering with other CSOs such as BBM, BGBVSC, Baylor, Sisonke, BUMMHI, FHI360, Humana People to People, Global Communities, and Hope Worldwide to provide a range of services for adolescent young girls and women in the national D.R.E.A.M.S. program.

We recently launched our third English Access Microscholarship Program in collaboration with the United States Embassy of Botswana for our participants. This two-year program will help our youth with enhancing their English language skills through personal development activities, English literacy sessions, and information and technology skills (IT). This commendable program has produced so many success stories over the years with one of the graduates of this very program excelling well enough to attain a scholarship to Maru-a-Pula for high school through A levels and attained a final grade

of A*. He is currently studying for his degree overseas in the USA.

We consider our media stakeholders to be critical partners for SSI. We have collaboratively held training and discussions with our media partners over the years about reporting on children, in particular, sensitive and more ethical ways of reporting about child sexual abuse-related cases. Our media partners have continuously supported us over the years through publishing important articles on child protection and advocacy, as well as coverage of our events in the communities that are life-changing for our beneficiaries, for example, Young Mothers Program graduations and many more events. In addition, our beneficiaries and staff have also had the pleasure of participating in a variety of TV and radio shows to advocate for their rights as well as to discuss and raise awareness about important societal issues.

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