By: Lerato Moteane
Home of Solace in Vosloorus held a mother-and-daughter year end function with the purpose of closing off what they started during 2018, they had a session with mothers and daughters; communicating and finding out where communication gaps are in terms of the treatment that comes from both parties.
A professional nurse Winnie Mahlangu is the founder of Home of Solace, she runs the place with the help of her daughter Gugu Mahlangu. Gugu explains how Home of Solace came about, she says “it started off from my mom’s background of being a professional nurse, she decided to come home and start a small wellness centre to feed off from the community and help them with doing anything from their blood group or blood tests. The centre assists with checking glucose, blood pressure,paternity tests,pain management and wellness.”
It was the first time holding such an event as Home of Solace came to existence in September 2018 and 2019 was the start of their conversations. Gugu adds, “From that conversation it went to a conclusion that we as daughters need to meet up with our sisters and have converastions with them. So we had another session where it was just our sister talk, and I think that was our most powerful session because out of that we got to understand situations that young girls are experiencing; some are being raped even by their own parents and they are actually not talking about it.”
The centre is open for collaborations and getting sponsors as it is self-funded. “This is not only to speak or say we are collaborating with female entrepreneurs or female sponsors, we are looking for anyone because in the future we want to add up and open it up to having conversations with fathers and sons, and also the whole parent-child conversation because we can’t blindside and say that it’s only the girls that are being affected as boys are being affected as well, and they are being side-lined at this point in time,” said Gugu.
During the event, Winnie introduced a concept where a boy child hands a gift to the elder and the reason behind that was to teach a child to do that whilst they are still young. The event saw the audience enjoying some entertainment from the dance group Vosloo Crazy Movers. Going forward, the future plans of Home of Solace is to create a wellness centre that feeds off from the exchange of being mentored by older people to the youth and also for people to seek help and get help.
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