A romcom was just what the girls needed
ALEXANDRA - Girls from the Child-Headed Households project were recently taken on an outing.
The Girls Support Group, a new offshoot of Rays of Hope’s Child Headed Households (CHH) project in Alexandra, is a peer initiative which has been established to help the girls cope with specific personal issues.
Unpacking the new organisation, Sihle Mooi, the CHH project leader, explained how the support group works, stating that many young people in Alex were vulnerable, and teenage girls in the townships, in particular, faced a variety of challenges and risks. The formation of the support group was, essentially, to address those challenges through a peer-driven platform that could help the girls cope with specific and personal challenges they face daily.
During the school holidays, Rays of Hope organised a trip for the 30 girls in the group to the movies to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and for some of them, it was their first visit to a big mall.
The girls received tubs of popcorn, a cold drink and chocolates and had fun posing in front of the huge cardboard cut-outs that advertised different films. There were continuous giggles and lots of loud laughter during the movie.
Afterwards, the girls said they enjoyed the film and recounted the funniest bits as they left the cinema. On the way back to Alex, the group stopped at a food shop and bought the girls lunch.
“This type of outing is important for our girls. While it was essentially a fun outing to a place they had not fully experienced before, it’s important for young, impressionable girls to enjoy healthy fun with their friends, and cement these relationships. They came home more confident about their ability to understand what happens outside the confines of Alex,” Mooi added.
