What’s your name and what do you do? My name is Waheedah Masinga and I am a co-founder of the Emerge Center in Eswatini. Emerge is a program that helps to improve the quality of life in the Kingdom of eSwatini by investing in the lives of poverty stricken young adults in need of a training program that promotes life skills development, character growth and ongoing counseling and mentorship. One of my main responsibilities is heading up the women and girls mentoring division. We work with and provide support groups for women and girls who have been abused sexually and emotionally. More than 50% of women in Eswatini have been sexually abuse multiple times before the age of 18. Sadly, many women never undergo any type of counseling or healing because Swazi culture strongly encourages women to ignore what has happened. My job is to create a space that allows women of all ages to talk about what has happened, hence promoting healing and wholeness. We also cover how to help prevent this from happening to others in the future and how to celebrate big and small victories.
How long have you been doing what you do? I moved from Ohio to Eswatini in 2011. While official registration of our nonprofit is recent, I have been doing this for the past 11 years.
What have been your challenges? One might think that the biggest challenged I faced was trying to build enough trust in the women so that they would open up and share. But I actually experienced the opposite. The women were hungry, accessible, and passionately ready for change. However, the main challenge I faced along the way was not being able to fully follow through on all those in need. Women and girls were reaching out constantly, but I was only able to do this on the side. I saw that the need was great and thankfully, I can happily say that I do this fulltime now. As time goes on, we will need additional facilitators to keep up with the huge need.
What are your greatest accomplishments? My greatest accomplishment by far is seeing those girls who I had the privilege of investing into many years ago now stepping in and doing the same for those in their reach. Recently, I was attending a graduation of a young lady who had been abandoned by her father and as a result she had to get a job at a very young age to provide for her younger siblings. In doing so, the shop owner took advantaged of her and raped her right in the shop only after working there for a short period of time. She reached out to me instantly and we began this journey of healing together. That was 8 years ago.
As I sat at her graduation, I watched this young lady address her fellow graduates with unspeakable confidence as the class representative. I was blown away by how far she had come. In addition to this, some of these girls are not only graduating from college but also starting their own families and successfully entering into the workforce. In brings me no other joy than watching each of these ladies succeed and overcome the plans of the enemy. I remember so many of them sopping in my arms after a horrific experience that left them feeling dirty, shamefully and powerless. They could have given up in life or got involved in the wrong things. But instead they are EMERGing into greatness and letting everyone know their stories.
What are your plans for the future? Having been able to step fully into this we will be opening other support groups throughout the country and training facilitators to lead in their communities. Also, in attempts to help empower other women to help others we have started a small literacy campaign that uses children’s books and crafts to help promote healthy discussions for women and girls.
How can people contact you? Please feel free to contact me via email: info.365emerge@gmail.com or through Whatsapp number +26876886390.
Any other information you would like to share? We would love for others to directly get involved in the Emerge Center. There are so many opportunities and needs awaiting. Please feel free to check out our website at www.365emerge.org or follow us on Instagram @365emerge