The community development charity team were so glad to be back face-to-face in our focus urban poor community earlier this year.

We ran our six-week parenting course in both kindergartens between February and March. The team had great conversations with mums about the realities of bedtime routines when living in one room with a lot of noise and activity continuing through to late at night, about the impossibility of controlling snack intake in an extended family context, and about the importance of family meetings when conflict arises.

Afterwards the charity team had a lot of food for thought. This course is such a small beginning to the journey of becoming better parents. How can we really make the ideas we discuss there generate long-term change in family life? And importantly, how can we encourage the mums who attend these courses to go on to become agents of change, passing on what they have learnt to others?

Just at this time two new volunteers joined the team, both mums with young children themselves. Together they started regular intentional chats on the parenting WhatsApp groups we had previously set up, following up on some of the theory we had discussed during the course with practical tips and challenges.

In addition, the team decided to create an ‘empowerment partner’ role for mums who have completed the parenting course and are willing to run a concise version of it with a few friends and neighbours. A course guide and suite of supporting videos are currently being prepared.

It’s great to be back face-to-face, getting to grips with core issues, strengthening our empowerment approach and developing new ideas.