HOPE Hero Highlight: Sharon Mkhonto – Guiding families through adversity
In the middle of my interview with Sharon Mkhonto, one of our Community Workers 
kindly requested that we stop our conversation. A man had come up to ask her help. He had been suicidal and was covered in wounds indicating recent self-harm. She immediately jumped into action. Within 5 minutes she had spoken to a local counsellor, set up an instant consultation, found a private space for them to speak and jumped right back into our conversation as if nothing happened.
This was a regular afternoon for the Parent Support Group (PSG) and Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre Community Worker. “Now people consider me a social worker”, Sharon said chuckling. “I’ve been helping a lot of people with all sorts of problems” Throughout her years with us she has come across a lot of difficult circumstances and helped empower the lives of hundreds of parents. “Once a member of our PSG told us about how she and her husband had agreed that he would be in charge of their savings while she would pay the bills. Her husband then left with all of the savings after being unfaithful to her, leaving her and their child with nothing but broken hearts and bills to pay. This devastated her. As we worked with her through her loss and pain, I saw her move from deeply depressed, and not being able to afford to even take her young child to a daycare, to more confident and positive and now running her own preschool and is a member of our ‘HOPE ECD Network’ of preschools! These are the special moments were thatgrew my love for being in the field. I can help people get the love and support they need.”
Though Sharon has been able to assist as many people as she has, her own life was not without its own troubles. However, she says her own healing comes from helping others. “When I talk with people through their problems, it helps me to deal with my own”. Sharon said humbly.
“Covid has really increased the workload. The need has grown so we’ve needed to stretch ourselves.” she says. With all the challenges that poverty-stricken families with young children face, there is an increasing need to intervene.
We are so fortunate to have strong, resilient, and courageous women like Sharon on our team.
Please consider supporting our efforts, by making a donation or becoming a monthly donor at https://hopeworldwidesa.org/donate-now and help us get more inspiring people like Sharon helping those in need.
