KNYSNA NEWS - Ghila Soldaat (34), the centre director of the Knysna branch of Youth for Christ, grew up "everywhere, actually".
Her father is an Anglican priest, now based in Swellendam with her mother, a retired nurse.
"Prior to that he was in Okiep (Northern Cape), and before that he was at the Cathedral in George - dean of the Cathedral."
Her father's work also took the family - she has an older sister, a teacher, and a younger sister, who lives on a farm with her husband - to Vredenberg, on the West Coast, where Ghila started her schooling, to Springs in Gauteng, then back to the West Coast, and to Knysna, where she matriculated at Knysna High School.
She studied psychology at the University of the Free State, and after graduating returned to Knysna, where she began doing volunteer work for Youth for Christ, an inter-denominational organisation.
Ghila's work is made up of "a lot of management of staff, networking, fund-raising, and then I try to do some ministry as well, involving counselling, and working with support groups at schools".
"It's very rewarding. I'm aware that I can get a secular job paying more, but it's not about the money, it's (her work) a calling.
"You have a conversation with a young person who feels hopeless, a journey with a group of girls, and at the end of that, the journey, the conversation, when you see the hopefulness in their eyes, or their attitude starts changing, or see the choices they've now made after all the lessons we've spoken about - that's priceless.
"I'm so excited about my work, and I'm grateful, truly."
Youth for Christ, based in the Knysna industrial area, has two wings, Team Khanya ('Bringing light'), and the Options Care Centre.
Team Khanya has a manager, and young volunteers from Europe and South Africa, some of them taking a gap year between school and university, who among others take part in outreach programmes at schools and organisations.
The Options Care Centre has a manager, and five staff members, with three of them running counselling, awareness, support and training initiatives, and two undertaking home visits and running parenting workshops and a families matter initiative.
The support initiative involves prevention-intervention strategies relating to teenage pregnancy. "We don't want our young people to go through a crisis pregnancy, because we don't want them to 'fall off a cliff'', and we work with boys and girls, separately," Ghila says.
"Topics we discuss include choices, relationships, sex, gender-based violence, and then we also speak about identity, belonging and purpose."
The awareness initiative involves "going to schools and having sessions on teenage pregnancies and abuse".
"We also go to maternity wards at the provincial hospital, and we sit with the mommies, pray with them, and we pray for their babies, and we give them (mothers) a 'basic baby parcel' that has blankets and nappies - all donations from the community."
On the families matter initiative, Ghila says "we always work with a hundred families a year; we get referrals from schools and clinics, to work with children and their families - mostly family counselling, individual counselling, and family mediation".
Ghila recently received the prestigious Paul Harris Award from Knysna Rotary, "which honours Rotary International founder Paul Harris and recognises outstanding contributions by individuals in placing service above self".
"I'm still in denial about receiving the award - 'are you sure I'm the right person you should be giving this to?' It's not me, it's the whole team behind me doing the work, and they really do it with passion, and love."
On her future, she says "I'll go where the Lord wants me to go. I'd like to do my master's in psychology, but I don't really have the time".
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