Swaziland

In 1998 Teen Challenge UK was introduced to and came alongside ‘The Lighthouse’, a ministry to street children in Mbabane, Swaziland. A relationship quickly developed with the Director, Kevin Ward, resulting in TCUK touring churches in Swaziland later that year with ‘The Evidence’. During the next few years students from the UK programmes were sent to help build a centre for the new male rehabilitation programme that had been started at Emafini, near Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland. Soon after,TCUK decided to officially ‘adopt’ this new Teen Challenge work, the first in Southern Africa. It is now home to up to 25 young men and there is a long waiting list of people who are desperate for help.

In 2004 the effects of the AIDS pandemic sweeping the Sub Sahara continent began to be felt in Swaziland which has the highest incidence of HIV infection in the world. Many children began to be orphaned as parents died from the effects of AIDS. TCUK and Teen Challenge Swaziland decided to address this problem and a farm was purchased outside Mbabane where homes for orphans could be built and where they could be cared for, educated and shown love and acceptance. The project, called Hawane Farm, is home to around fifty orphans and plans exist to increase this number to one hundred. A day school, teaching around one hundred children, a hospice for the terminally ill children and a church have been built on the farm as well as the bungalow homes for the orphans.

For further information visit www.swazitc.com