Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, could be viewed as a city without hope. A change in President has not brought the changes people were dreaming of. Wages have remained stagnant while food and fuel prices have soared. Unemployment continues to be high, and the economic situation is compounded by severe drought and shortages of water. Girls and women have turned to sex work to make ends meet and, in 2017, the Ministry of Health and Child Care estimated that there were approximately 45,000 female sex workers in Zimbabwe, with nearly 7,000 in Bulawayo.

Shining Star Project continued their life-changing work with girls and women engaged in sex work, resulting in the development of new skills, girls and women being empowered, and aspirations becoming a reality.

Peer Education

The Shining Star Project planned to train 40 peer educators, but in fact, they were able to increase this to 50. Initial training was carried out in February by Shining Star staff and a refresher training was held in November with input from the District AIDs coordinator from the National AIDs council.

The training equipped the girls and women to share sexual health knowledge with 3,005 other girls and women in sex work. This is a great achievement and they have far exceeded their target of 2,800 girls and women reached.

The project director, Emsipa Nare, said: “During the report meetings we have been pleased by the passion that the ladies are showing. Most of the ladies that were timid are now showing some confidence in the way they talk. We noticed that most of the women were encouraging each other to do better in reaching out to others involved in sex work. The peer educators are the pillar of the project as they are a link between the project and the sex worker community. They create a platform to be able to interact with women in sex work and refer them for uptake to other services.”

Through the referrals made by the peer educators:

351 girls and women have been tested for HIV

167 women were provided with access to contraception

83 women were provided with cervical cancer screening

33 women were provided with gender-based violence assistance.

Vocational Skills Training

A key aim of the Shining Star Project is to provide the peer educators with a variety of vocational training opportunities to support them in growing their skills and confidence to start a business, which gives them a viable route out of sex work. The range of vocational training on offer expanded this year to include; learning how to make a popular concentrated juice drink and learning how to make sanitary pads, alongside the established offers of training, consisting of beauty therapy and cooking.

Business Management

To ensure the Shining Star ladies could utilise the vocational skills they had acquired to create a credible business, or to inspire them to create a new business idea, they were provided with business management training. The Director of the Bulawayo Publicity Board, More-Blessings, carried out the training. She is a member of the City Pentecostal Assembly Church, where the Shining Star Project is based, and has a Master’s degree in Marketing Management. Of the peer educators, 41 completed the training, which involved; understanding what business is, how it is managed, how to calculate and make a profit, and writing business proposals. Following the training, proposals could be submitted to the Shining Star project, and so far, 15 of these have been funded with more being funded later in 2020.

Discipleship

A total of 24 discipleship sessions were run over the year, with around 22 girls and women attending each session. At the start of the programme, many of the ladies regarded themselves as worthless and assumed that God hated them. Some of the ladies had attended church previously, but felt that because of their lifestyle, they were no longer accepted by God.

However, through exploring the Bible, their eyes were opened to God’s love and compassion for them. They took part in team-building exercises and Bible teaching was shared, with particular emphasis on how valuable each of the ladies are. As a result of the time away, it was a great joy to see five ladies give their lives to Christ – praise God! The Shining Star project partnered with Bulawayo for Jesus Mission to run a revival dinner, where many of the ladies who had previously attended church rededicated their lives to God.

Student Outreach

The adolescent peer educators spearheaded a project to deliver sexual-health education in colleges and universities. Unfortunately, the peer educators reported that sex work is rife in some of these institutions due to the pressures of paying fees. They also found that some students are being recruited into the trade by other sex workers. The Shining Star Project worked in partnership with a number of organisations in their work with colleges and universities to conduct a wellness day at White City Stadium in Bulawayo. Shining Star also delivered sexual health sessions at six other universities and colleges.

A topic that was raised regularly was the rise of Vuzu parties, which are wild gatherings organised by young people, but sponsored by adults, which involved sexual activity and drug-taking. One of the project team, Thembi, spoke to the students about the risks of these parties. The response of the students was overwhelmingly positive, with many asking to have more sessions, saying that they don’t receive this information from their families and instead learn about sex from their peers. While the project aimed to reach 2,000 students, around 460 students received the information due to an issue in securing timetable slots. When the programme is run again this year, the institutions will be contacted earlier in advance, to hopefully secure more slots with the students.

Please pray for the incredible work being done through the Shining Star project, and for the numerous lives God is changing through the information they are passing on to these women in need.