Meet 18 year old Charity Akhona Mabi from Bloemfontein. She is the founder of “ZithandeGirl” and currently doing her Matric at Brebner High School.
Asked about her childhood, Charity told us that growing up she was a bit lonely because she was the only child “my childhood was quiet normal, but lonely most times as I was the only child” she said. Her mother then adopted her cousin, so she’s not lonely as she used to be in the past.
We asked Charity to tell us more about ZithandeGirl. She explained that is a campaign that is aimed at helping girls gain self-confidence and to empower young women. She then created a page on Facebook, and its first campaign was “#shareyourstorychallenge”, hoping to get girls to open up and share their stories in order to motivate and empower each other, to show them that there aren’t alone and that there’s probably another female out there who might be in the same situation.
The campaign started on the 28th of January 2020, asked how it came about she replied “it’s quiet a funny story because I usually write something on my notepad and on the 11th of January I just wrote #ZithandeGirl, with no intensions of starting a campaign”. Charity then started posting about it on social media, getting females to follow the hashtag by posting their pictures using #ZithandeGirl. From there on, she knew that had to create a platform for girls to reach out for help “the campaign wasn’t planned, it just happened” she added.
Asked about the challenges she faces, she told us that some girls expect help with certain things (essential items). She distributed food parcels, but she could not give them out to all the girls that reached out to her, given that she’s only in high school and she is not financially stable to help out everyone, she wishes to have sponsors one day.
Her aspirations include making people happy “I would like to make people happy as I am, I am free spirited” she said. She is high motivated by being her true self “an original is worth much more than a copy”
