Greenlight

Our Greenlight project started out as an initiative of young people – Change  Agents – reaching out to girls working as commercial sex workers in informal settlements of north-western Johannesburg, primarily Diepsloot, in 2008.

Girls are recruited and sometimes forced to work as commercial sex workers and are particularly vulnerable due to the area’s high rate of unemployment and lack of opportunities for youth. Girls who have migrated from other African countries and do not have legal status in South Africa often has no alternative to commercial sex work and are vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking.

Through the Greenlight project, Oasis youth Change Agents, build relationships with these girls, train them to become peer educators and come to a place of healing and wholeness, which includes freedom from substance abuse and access to opportunities for alternative employment.  

Peer  Educators takes initiative to start conversations about sexual health with people, by introducing themselves on the streets of Randburg and Diepsloot.    Peer Educators educates around issues such as STI’s, how to use a condom, myths related to sexual issues, etc.     These outreaches happens 3 days a week.

Steve Chalke (founder of Oasis 25 years ago in the UK), is also the chair of the Stop the Traffik Coalition and has been appointed to be UN.GIFT Special Advisor on Community Action against Human Trafficking.

Therefore, all Oasis countries also works hand in hand with Stop the Traffik towards eradicating local Human Trafficking related issues.   In South Africa the Greenlight team works towards educating communities towards dangers of Human trafficking.

STOP THE TRAFFIK is a growing global movement of individuals, communities and organisations fighting to PREVENT the sale of people, PROTECT the trafficked and PROSECUTE the traffickers.

STOP THE TRAFFIK was set up in 2006 to

• Educate: raise awareness and understanding of human trafficking and what can be done about it
• Advocate: engage with communities and professionals to create an environment where it is harder to traffik, hide and exploit people
• Fund-raise: financing STOP THE TRAFFIK projects and anti-trafficking activities around the world which work with advocates, those vulnerable to and those who have been, trafficked.

STOP THE TRAFFIK now has more than 1000 member organisations in 50 countries and tens of thousands of activists all over the world.

Through the existence of the project various campaigns have been joined, e.g. Love Life, Stop the Traffik and Govenment Campaigns around HIV.     The Peer Educators already have received training and have campaign experience, so therefore they are often asked to join and lead these campaigns.

Another part of the Greenlight project is to fascilitate Sex Education or Stop the Traffik awareness in schools.   Various primary schools within Cosmo City and Diepsloot has benefitted, and continues to, from these knowledgable young people speaking about issues that are often a culturally taboo topic.

The pre-school stated after identifying a need in a community of commercial sexworkers living a dilapidated buildings that was also used as a brother on the edge of diepsloot. the children of this community was just hanging around with their mothers and did not go tho school or know how to read or write!

A group of the youth or peer-educators now teach the children in a little shack building we put up three times a week and encourage the parents to send the older ones to school. they get taught ABC’s hygiene and just have fun.

Reggie from the Greenlight Change Agent Community.

• Nurse or health professional to volunteer a few days a month to do basic health checks on the girls.
• Uniforms including good walking shoes.
• Umbrella’s because we do a lot of outreach in the sun/ rain and any weather condition outside
• Materials to use in sewing classes like, pieces of cloth, banners and canvas posters, haberdashery things, normal plastic shopping bags for knitting
• Anything we can use in our pre-school like childrens books and toys, soap and toothbrushes, good quality childrens clothes.
• Jungle Gym for pre-school

 

1. Build relationships and invite 10 commercial sex workers into a journey of growth as they are included by July 2011

2. Implement community education campaigns that reach 1,000 at-risk children or youth

3. Maintain and strengthen our relationship with MSAU by achieving agreed MSAU targets and lead to funding being renewed for 2012/13

4. Network with similar Oasis projects and participate in Stop The Traffik through regular contact and local implementation of at least one STT initiative

5. Raise financial support of R30,000 for the 2011/12 year and gifts or commitments of R60,000 for 2012/13 by end of February 2012