Dream-Shaping ＼ Eswatini

Eswatini
Eswatini, formerly and still commonly known in English as Swaziland, is located in Southern Africa. Its territory is a little smaller than half of Taiwan. Around 1.3 million people live in this country and people there use Swazi and English as their official languages. People there tend to be at ease with their current situation and life pace is much slower than ours in Taiwan.
New Hope Center is a residential children’s home. Kids are taken into care because of parental neglect or abuse, or inability to cope with children due to illness or mental crisis. Every kid that are taken in all take the same family name, Abraham, and their first names all pick from Bible. The age of children in the center range from 4 to 20s. After children finish their education, the director will help them get jobs. Basically, New Hope Center is like these kids’ second home.

Kids in New Hope Center	In church
Young kids in New Hope Center	Teens in New Hope Center

Kids in the center all come from dysfunctional families and some were even abused by their parents before. Vivianna and other volunteers tried to help those kids feel better by engaging them in paintings. As they expect, the method has proved beneficial in treating children with trauma. Art can serve as a healing power for children’s troubled mind and ease their anxiety, build their confidence and help them develop their potentials. As a witness of art healing power, Vivianna and other volunteers got the fund from flyingV crowdfunding platform and started a program named “Shalom! Swaziland Art Educational Project’. Besides, with the previous short-term volunteer experience in Eswatini, Vivianna got a scholarship provided by the Ministry of Education. With the money, Vivianna stayed in Eswatini from July to December, 2019, worked as a long-term volunteer and made a documentary.

While working as a long-tern volunteer in Eswatini, Vivianna lived in New Hope Center with kids. Basically, she was like those kids’ young mother and teacher. Because of spending almost 24 hours with those kids every day, she discovered that some kids had some serious problems like, lying, stealing, or premarital pregnancy. These problems once made her very frustrated because she could not fix them all. However, she found that as long as she didn’t judge and keep trying, kids would let her help them eventually. After the kids let down their guard, she worked with the kids to explore solutions. Little by little many kids got back on track.

There were several kids that left deep impression on Vivianna. The first one was a little kid who used to pee and poop in his pants. Vivianna taught him to use words to express the act of using the toilet. Then she would reward him every time he did it right. In the end, he learned to express when nature called and no longer soiled his pants. Another shy girl showed great talents on paintings after she was introduced to art. What’s more, another boy was determined to go to college in Taiwan. For Vivianna, being helpful to others delivers great pleasure. Human beings are hard-wired for generosity. The more we give, the happier we feel.
Note: In April 2018, the official name was changed from Kingdom of Swaziland to Kingdom of Eswatini, mirroring the name commonly used in Swazi.