30 May 2018

In order to deal with depression and anxiety among youngsters, the  Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) hosted a life skills development workshop to see how they could help students.

Different facilitators were invited to motivate students on any topic of their choice in the their first life skills development workshop on May 30.

In an interview, the founder of Youth of Hope Safe Haven, Mr Boyson Mokone, who is a reformed ex-drug addict, said it was important for parents and teachers to find out what children were going through.

“Your child does not have to know you more than you know them,” said Mr Mokone.

He said parents should try and minimise the time they spend on television and social media in order to observe their children’s behavioural changes.

He said the workshop platform would help to see through the the eyes of the learners, and in that way, fill the gap on how children couldd be assisted with their problems.

The school’s programmes officer, Ms Lecha Kgotla took the initiative to find a way to make the workshop interesting for YWCA students.

Ms Kgotla joined the school in January and she said she hoped she would bring life to the Peer Approach to Counselling for Teens (PACT) group. She said she called a meeting to recruit students to the PACT group, but that there was a poor turn up.

She said it motivated her to find a way to reach out to students in a way that they would not find boring.

She said instead of gathering all the classes at the school hall and giving invited facilitators turns to speak, she created groups of not more than 10 students and assigned facilitators to different groups.

Each facilitator took 20 minutes per group giving them motivational talks on the topic of their choice.

She said as adolescents’ minds wander easily, she came up with a strategy that would work for both the facilitators and students.

“The whole idea of rotating groups for 20 minutes is for the students to engage, to be attentive and to express themselves easily,” said Ms Kgotla.

Moreover, Ms Kgotla pointed out that being in the presence of knowledge makes you absorb it.

The life skills development platform sharpens students’ independent thinking, making them  better at decision making and problem solving. Ms Kgotla said the workshops would be hosted every two weeks.

One of the facilitators, Mr Dimpho Keitshokile said it was important to research and be up to date with the language students used.

He said in that way, it would be easy to have free flowing conversations with them. He also said students it made students open up easily about emotional issues such as career worries, relationships and peer pressure. ENDS