Teen Challenge SWAZILAND began in April 1997, as a drop-in centre and coffee shop in Mbabane, called The Lighthouse.

The traditional extended family network had started to break down, directly due to HIV and AIDS, with consequential numbers of young children rushing to live on the streets, trying find an “easier” life. They sought out the bright lights of the city, the lure of easy money and food. What they found was common to any major city. They found verbal abuse, physical rejection, a cold and a hard life, filled with sexual abuse leading to transactional sex and addiction, homelessness and sickness.

The coffee shop provided a place of refuge for those on and in the street. However, it soon became abundantly clear that feeding and clothing the children was simply not enough. The abuse on the streets often led to infection. They needed an interim safe home. A home to protect and provide for them, a place which would help them to deal with the hurt, the rejection, the life controlling habits. This would give them a hand up. They needed a second chance. We all do.

There were no facilities for rehabilitation in Swaziland at the time, no free medical care, no detox facility--except for the national psychiatric centre. We were then introduced to one of the most successful rehabilitation programs in the world, Teen Challenge UK. Teen Challenge Swaziland was born.

We copied TC UK’s program and applied their systems and resource materials. We began in a caravan, grew into 12 mud huts and finally into the current structure at Emafini, built entirely by the staff and students, hence its rough appearance.

Pastor John Macey, from Teen Challenge UK, visited us in 1998 and encouraged us to get on and help the disadvantaged, by providing a rehabilitation program for street children, and we did. 
There has been miracle after miracle in the lives of the men, the children and our staff. Despite the success in ministering to the needs of men and women in the residential treatment facilities, the impact of AIDS and the orphan pandemic became critical. Social welfare was bringing to us children abandoned due to the death of their parents from HIV and AIDS. The children were traumatized, abused, growing in rejection, fueled by fear, anger and rebellion. We needed to reach out and help.

To address this need, “The Ark” was launched in Mbabane. This new home addressed the needs of the abandoned children referred to us. Many of these children were HIV positive. In 2004 the Ark was moved to the newly purchased (purchased with the help of Teen Challenge UK) Hawane Farm, a 15-hectare farm where we built homes for one mother and eight children at a time. Each child attends a government school not far from the home. The children have a foster mother, an aunt, a counselor, a nurse and a gogo (grandmother) on the property.  The move allowed for the building of many more homes and a medical centre for treating opportunistic infections and to act as a sick bay. Our compassionate nurses have seen the cd 4 count of some of the children rise from as low as 40 to 2000.

The need to open a life skills centre became evident in 2004. The centre serves as a life skills training program for children and adults leaving either their homes, the residential program and/or churches. The life skills program builds character, preparing the youth in a gap year program, to be equipped for life by helping them be teachable, presentable, confident, faithful and knowledgeable. The program is called Teen Challenge Life Skills School (TCLSS).

In 2006, we felt led to open a church in central Mbabane. The church is called “The Potter’s Wheel.”

PO Box 1141, Mbabane, Kingdom of Swaziland

Phone: (268) 404-7685 or (268) 404-5452

Email: lighthouse@swazi.net.co.sz or wardkh@realnet.co.sz