The Thoughtful Path

Set up in 2010, The Thoughtful Path is a different look at the way charities work with communities. Our flagship programme in Munsieville, South Africa, engages the entire community and enables its most vulnerable children to grow into healthy, productive adults. The Thoughtful Path programme facilitates instead of implementing. Many stakeholders and partner organisations have come together to deliver the best integrated health and support services to the township.

Two essential commitments for the Thoughtful Path were made before it was launched in early 2010:

Its focus would be on the transition of Munsieville children from vulnerability to emerge as healthy, productive adults, and not on interventions. The activities would serve the objective and would therefore change throughout the life of the programme. Its strategy would be to stimulate the establishment of a new culture that would be profoundly conducive to child development.

It was recognised by the Board of Project HOPE UK that such deep cultural change would require a timespan significantly longer than the organisation’s previous project life cycles, hence the agreement to commit to the project for no less than ten years.

The organisation’s determination to honour these two commitments has enabled The Thoughtful Path Munsieville to establish a model of care for seriously vulnerable children based on a new paradigm, replacing short-term, uncoordinated interventions with a holistic, long-term approach that mirrors the care received by children in stable, loving, well-resourced families – care based on the multiple, complex needs of the individual rather than the constraints of a “programme”. To facilitate the care of vulnerable children, the organisation has managed to provide several important resources including: The Children’s Embassy, Hope Park with its health, nutrition and educational units, the Children’s Sports and Performing Arts Arena, the e-Zone smallholding and, to be established in 2023/24, a dedicated Adolescent and Youth Friendly Zone to study, to perform and receive vital health and life skill education.

The most significant operational achievements of the first ten years of TPM include: 

• Transformation of ECD experience for children and of the standards expected by families/caregivers. 
• Reversal of culture of non-disclosure of serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children and child neglect, largely attributed to the existence of the Botshabelo Child Crisis Line and other activities to encourage reporting.
• Social and educational support of “excluded” children through the No Child Left Behind initiative. 
• Access to essential medical services such as vaccination and de-worming for children in the most deprived neighbourhoods. 
• Advocacy services for children and families denied essential services and benefits, and those who appear to be unsupported by statutory bodies following crime and abuse. 
• Changing culture in respect of child nutrition, with hundreds of families much better informed about nutrition and experiencing greater food security and access to vital fresh fruit and vegetables.