Let us walk you through a vision of community thriving springing up across East and Southern Africa. This vision centers around local Family Resource Centers: a place where services, developmental opportunities, and tools for health and wellbeing all converge around the needs of the most vulnerable.
Read as Loom Staff Member Kay Morales envisions what it could look like to walk through the doors of a Family Resource Center:
I want all who enter the doors to get a big jolt of hope. I want there to be enough hope for everyone. I picture walking into a warm welcoming place filled with life, beauty, activity and color. I want hospitality to be the focus. I want it to be a place of community. I want all who enter to feel safe and experience acceptance.
I see people sharing a cup of tea. I see an older child helping a younger child with their reading. I see someone painting or drawing. I hear lovely music. I see families with needs coming in and having someone who will listen to them..
I want those who work there, the trainers, social workers, sports coaches, tutors, cooks, librarians, seamstresses, small business experts, computer experts, gardeners etc to be our greatest resource. I want them to be people who truly love and care for children and their families.
I want all of this to run through the grid of African hospitality. I want our friends, the local experts, to inform the whole process of creation of the center. I want the grounds to be so inviting, beautiful foliage, gardens, fruit trees, a well, a beautiful playground and sports equipment. I hope there will be animals…chickens, goats, birds – maybe a pig or two.
I want grandmas who have never learned to read to be able to now read to their grandchildren. I want there to be music, smells of delicious food, beautiful books to handle, colorful art on the walls, and people who will really listen and care.
