CommuTalk Reporter
GWERU: Being a single mom means wearing many hats — provider, nurturer, protector, and decision-maker — often all before breakfast. Imagine taking on responsibilities that a husband and wife would often share, every single day, with no pause button.
Beneath its flowery edges, for many single moms, Mother’s Day can carry an unseen, heavy weight.
Capacitation towards self sustainance however changed Melisa Sibanda’s story.
The 25 year old form Reuben, Epworth in the outskirts of Harare says all hope was gone, ‘unemployed plus community shame’ being her biggest burdens.
She however never regrets the road she travelled with Doctors Without Boaders (MSF) as a peer educator in the Adolescents Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) project, a project that provides comprehensive SRH healthcare to adolescents and young people in Mbare and Epworth suburbs.
“Falling pregnant at the age of 19 was not easy, neither was it trying to refocus on life,” sher narrated.
“Today I look back at how my experiences of motherhood and being a peer educator at MSF prepared me for the future,” she further narrated.
Daily, Melissa paced diligently from one corner to another, meeting adolescents and young sex workers in the streets, bars, clubs, and alleys of Epworth sharing information and responding to questions on SRH issues such as HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), menstrual health, contraception, distributed condoms, conducted HIV tests and pregnancy tests.
“At first when a friend invited me to apply for an MSF peer educator position advertised at Epworth Polyclinic, I was a little sceptical and unsure if she would get the job and be able to excel in it.
“However, once MSF trained me after recruitment, she gradually gained confidence and was well equipped to support my peers, who are young sex workers. Though this came with its own challenges, today I am proud of how the experience and challenges made me stronger,” Melisa said.
Added Melisa, “There is no better teacher than to teach yourself how to get over life’s negativities through the work you do and through experiences shared by people who see you as their saviour.”
With a tight routine, her son Ryan (4) motivated her to work harder.
Daily she woke up at 6 O’clock in the morning to do household chores before going to work, preparing her son for school, and dropping him off. Because she had to be at work early, it meant she also had to drop off Ryan at school early since the school was far from her workplace and she had no-one to take him to school.
Picking him up from school was also hard because she finished work at the same time he finished school. Melissa had to be in the community from 9 O’clock in the morning until 3 O’clock in the afternoon, thereafter, she would go to the MSF office and spend another hour doing data entry.
Melissa however appreciates great lessons from her experience both as a mother and as a peer educator. Her circumstances forced her to find solutions, to plan, to be more organised on how to take care of Ryan and getting through to her peers who did not take her seriously at first.
At work she had to adapt for her work to be more effective by mobilising sex workers a few days before setting up health talks with them. She even made an extra effort to find them at night at their work to ensure they accessed all the services MSF offered.
In turn, they began to respect her, as they proactively looked for her for support. Through the experience of motherhood, she also became more responsible, became better at planning, and started making decisions that were in her son’s best interests.
“I took many lessons from this experience. I now understand why it is important to be responsible as a parent, to save money, work hard, plan, secure my child’s future and ensure my child is safe always,” says Melissa.
“While working at MSF I managed to get a passport so I could travel to neighbouring countries to buy goods for resale in Zimbabwe to boost my earnings,” says Melissa.
Today, Melissa is not only proud to have graduated from the MSF peer educator’s programme that weans off peer educators when they reach 25 years but is also happy to have benefitted from an MSF scholarship that paid off for her studies in Procurement and Supply.
“I never thought that this opportunity of working as a peer educator would expose me to so many other opportunities. I look forward to completing my advanced course in Procurement and Supply in August and hope to get a job that would enable me to look after myself and my son.
“I am now a stress free, self-sustained woman,” Melisa further said
