By Conrad Gweru
AT just 25 years old, Melissa Sibanda of Epworth, from an area popularly known as kwaReuben, in the outskirts of Harare, has a story of resilience that mirrors the challenges and triumphs of many young Zimbabwean single mothers.
As a single parent to her four-year-old son, Ryan, Melissa recently completed a year-long role as a peer educator with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) focusing on Adolescents Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) project, a project that provides comprehensive SRH healthcare to adolescents and young people in Mbare and Epworth suburbs.
Melissa’s first hurdle in life was falling pregnant at an early age of 19. Difficult as it was, today, she looks back at how her experiences of motherhood and being a peer educator at MSF not only made her resilient but prepared her for what lay ahead in her journey.
Upon getting a job at MSF, she faced challenges trying to balance between her work and looking after her son Ryan, but little did she know that this experience was preparing her for a better future as a young mother.
Daily, Melissa paced diligently from one corner to another, meeting adolescents and young sex workers in the streets, bars, clubs, and alleys of Epworth sharing information and responding to questions on SRH issues such as HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), menstrual health, contraception, distributed condoms, conducted HIV tests and pregnancy tests.
At first when her friend invited her to apply for an MSF peer educator position advertised at Epworth Polyclinic, Melissa was a little sceptical and unsure if she would get the job and be able to excel in it.
However, once MSF trained her, after recruitment, she gradually gained confidence and was well equipped to support her peers who are young sex workers.
Though this came with its own challenges, today she is proud of how the experience and challenges made her stronger.
“I joined MSF in 2024, and I worked with a group of 45 young sex workers in my community. At first it was not easy to conduct community education especially to my peers who rejected my advice suggesting I should give myself that same advice since I was just like them, a sex worker,” says Melissa.
“Sometimes, I also struggled to find them due to the nature of their work that involves a lot of movement, and I was shy to advise them on condom use at first, but eventually I overcame this.”
Her routine also worsened her situation. Daily she woke up at 6 O’clock in the morning to do household chores before going to work, preparing her son for school, and dropping him off. Because she had to be at work early, it meant she also had to drop off Ryan at school early since the school was far from her workplace and she had no-one to take him to school.
Picking him up from school was also hard because she finished work at the same time he finished school. Melissa had to be in the community from 9 O’clock in the morning until 3 O’clock in the afternoon, thereafter, she would go to the MSF office and spend another hour doing data entry.
“I struggled to find solutions and even suffered from headaches. My son at first cried a lot, he did not want to go to school, but there was no-one to look after him at home. I asked my sister to take care of him but once she got a job, she had to leave.”
“I then had to ask another boy who was going to the same school as Ryan to walk with him to and from school and that at least lessened my burden,” Melissa adds.
She ended up looking for a nanny to look after Ryan while she was at work after exhausting every plan, though at weekends she would take him to work.
Melissa appreciates great lessons from her experience both as a mother and as a peer educator. Her circumstances forced her to find solutions, to plan, to be more organised on how to take care of Ryan and getting through to her peers who did not take her seriously at first.
At work she had to adapt for her work to be more effective by mobilising sex workers a few days before setting up health talks with them. She even made an extra effort to find them at night at their work to ensure they accessed all the services MSF offered.
In turn, they began to respect her, as they proactively looked for her for support. Through the experience of motherhood, she also became more responsible, became better at planning, and started making decisions that were in her son’s best interests.
“I took many lessons from this experience. I now understand why it is important to be responsible as a parent, to save money, work hard, plan, secure my child’s future and ensure my child is safe always,” says Melissa.
“While working at MSF I managed to get a passport so I could travel to neighbouring countries to buy goods for resale in Zimbabwe to boost my earnings. In the past I used to waste money, spending all of it carelessly, but now I have changed,” she says.
Today, Melissa is not only proud to have graduated from the MSF peer educator’s programme that weans off peer educators when they reach 25 years but is also happy to have benefitted from an MSF scholarship that paid off for her studies in Procurement and Supply.
“I never thought that this opportunity of working as a peer educator would expose me to so many other opportunities. I look forward to completing my advanced course in Procurement and Supply in August and hope to get a job that would enable me to look after myself and my son.”
