Kudvumisa Glass - Life Skills Training

These are some of the primary challenges youth face in Swaziland today:

• A culture that stifles innovation and creative thinking.
• An education system that does not have the infrastructure or capital to educate the children through primary or secondary grades.
• Rampant under and unemployment.
• Children growing up lacking the moral and social knowledge and life skills normally passed on to children by parents because of the loss of all or nearly all family members to AIDS.

In answer to this, a program whose goal is to help break the cycle of poverty is essential. Our approach is three-fold: 1. teaching personal and fiscal responsibility through a course entitled Money Matters , a second course we have developed which picks up with the practical implementation of the Money Matters course, 2. Participation in a working business model under Kudvumisa Glass, and 3. using Kudvumisa Glass to help develop the creativity and stimulate the imagination of the youth in the program.
We want to impart and establish lasting Godly principles in these youth that will change their lives by teaching sustainable business and personal skills; for these youth to move from a position of poverty and dependency to self reliance and confidence.

So I'm putting this out for prayer. I believe that art (art therapy?) can play an important role in reaching the goal of #3 above. If you have that skill and the desire to use it in a completely different arena than where you are right now, would you consider praying how God may be able to use you here in Swaziland? The youth in this program (and pretty much country wide) have experienced deep trauma due to loss of parents, siblings, exploitation, and drug and alcohol abuse. I'm an engineer with an engineer's approach. It would benefit the youth in the program to have art taught by someone who can use it to help heal the wounds of everyday life here.