24 Jul 2024

Healthy Families Foundation (HFF) is committed to eliminate social ills in its drive to build strong family ties and responsible communities, the foundation’s donor and community relations executive, Ms Ashley Thaba has explained.

 Speaking during HFF stakeholder engagement in Gaborone Tuesday, Ms Thaba said it was in the best interest of the foundation to root out any societal moral decay and shape responsible families.

 “Many social ills originate from family issues and we have an evidence based research driven, character building programme to strengthen and transform families to address the root causes of social ills,” she said.It was on that background that, Ms Thaba said the foundation established nationwide campaigns that resumed last year.

 The campaigns, which she said were themed ‘fix the root, fix the fruit’ were aimed at building healthy families setups and uprooting social ills which impacted family setups.

“If we can fix the root, we can fix the fruit as we have realised that fixing the fruit first will not in any way eliminate the problem, so we start with family building because the biggest responsibility comes from home,” she said.

 Ms Thaba said it was through such campaigns that many social ills such as Gender Based Violence, unhealthy marriages and suicide rates were reduced.

Ms Thaba said the foundation had forged ties with key stakeholders to address issues pertaining to family building with the view that solid families were the centre piece of a healthy community and the nation at large.

 Additionally, she stated that the TV show dubbed ‘Talking with the Thabas’ was the right platform to build stronger families and address some of the social ills such as GBV and addressing the rising cases of divorce bedevilling the country.

  Ms Thaba said over 20 000 lives in 45 villages nationwide had been touched through the campaigns, covering topical issues as unmet expectations in relationships, communication, preparing for marriage in the right way, his/her needs, GBV and how to relate with one’s children. ENDS