How Bright Can We Shine

To learn more about the Shine network, please go to tiny.cc/weshine

The Shine 2020 Challenge – the Lightbulbs Project

Every year Shine takes on a special project with the support and involvement of its whole community.  This year’s project is the Lightbulbs Project which supports the Bulembu Ministries in their work to care for the needs of Eswatini’s orphans and vulnerable children.  The aim of the project is to buy 5 solar street lights and 10 heat pumps by raising £20,000.

To learn more about the Shine network, please go to tiny.cc/weshine

Incentives

How Bright Can We Shine was founded by Karen Mandy and Jane Boyd.  Karen and Jane have known each other since high school and both have a background in personal development and a shared belief in the importance of empowering people to reach their potential.

Over recent years they have focused on supporting women and to help them navigate the transition through the different phases of life.  From this experience they learnt a couple of things that drove the foundation of Shine.  Firstly, they recognised the importance people attach to the simple act of giving and helping others and the benefits, in terms of physical and mental wellbeing, that it brings.  Secondly, they recognised how hard it can be to find the time and resources needed to offer sustainable help and support – whether that is within our own local communities or more broadly.

As a result of this experience, Shine was founded to empower people to make a difference to others and to give access to resources to make good deed project ideas achievable.  Shine is a platform dedicated to fostering creativity and collaboration so that ideas can be turned into action.  Members can bring their own project ideas to the Shine network for support and involvement or they can offer their own skills and knowledge to existing projects.  And importantly, whatever their level of involvement – Shine wants its members to have fun and the opportunity to make new friends.

The Shine community is international and whilst initially focused on women, men are very welcome too! It’s mission is to have one million female members globally by 2023 and in setting this ambitious target Jane and Karen took inspiration from the words of Matthew Arnold:

“If ever there comes a time when women of the world come together, purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known”.

This is achievable – take for example a recent project to provide masks to protect key workers in Eswatini during the COVID crisis while ensuring the employment of the factory workers who made them.  This was a Shine project that developed to involve members on 3 continents!

If you are interested in joining the Shine community, or simply want to know more about its current projects please go to : tiny.cc/weshine or contact Karen karen@rediscoveringme.org or Jane jane@rediscoveringme.org.

We would love you to be involved in the project – to find out more, click here https://how-bright-can-we-shine.mn.co/

Bulembu is a township in Estwatini  (known as Swaziland), a small, beautiful kingdom between South Africa and Mozambique.  Eswatini is in dire need:  It has the highest HIV rate in the world (27%) and the disease has taken an entire generation of Swazis. In the 90’s the population was decreasing so rapidly that the UN estimated the Swazi people would be wiped out by the year 2050. Although hard work has improved the statistics, the country has suffered persistent drought, adding to the problems. There are around 120,000 orphans and vulnerable children in desperate need of care. That’s around 10% of the country’s population. Most recently COVID 19 has only served to worsen the situation.

Bulembu  Ministries  is dedicated to looking after Swaziland’s orphans and vulnerable children. In doing so, it has set itself the mission of raising a troubled generation to know that they are loved, and to know that they can achieve their potential. The Bulembu mission is to raise a generation of confident and skilled future leaders and believes that anybody can show leadership in whatever walk of life they follow.

The Bulembu story began in 2006, when a team of social developers and entrepreneurs purchased the abandoned mining town of Bulembu with a vision to restore it to a fully sustainable town, which currently provides care to over 350 orphaned and vulnerable children. Today, our variety of successful Community Enterprises such as the Bulembu Country Lodge, Bulembu Honey and Bulembu Water provide for the sustainability fund for our Community Care. Our children live in family homes with a caregiver, where they receive all they need, and we provide all children with a full education at Bulembu Christian Academy. The town has a thriving church and a clinic where all children receive health care.

Bulembu is a Christian movement but does not discriminate on faith, is non-denominational and does not seek to evangelise its diverse support groups.  The children who live in Bulembu are  not required to worship as Christians, or be baptised. Employees at Bulembu also reflect the range of faiths across Swaziland as well as agnostic and atheistic beliefs.

If you would like to know more about Bulembu, please go to: https://www.bulembu.org/who-we-are.