2024 by the numbers

Every child matters.

At the heart of Sikunye’s work is the unshakeable determination to see every child get a strong start to life. And we don’t have time to waste. 2024 saw Sikunye running 107 events to play our part in seeing churches care for and support families in the crucial stage of the first thousand days. Our work is in three broad categories of raising awareness, equipping and supporting churches. Behind every number you read below is a story of a church using their strength to reach and impact families.

We have raised awareness

A key part of Sikunye’s work is to reach church leaders with the message that they have a unique role to play in supporting families with children in their first thousand days of life.

We re-filmed our Church & Early Life workshop to better communicate to church leaders to invest in young lives. We hosted 30 of these events, with over 880 people completing this workshop in 2024. This included in-person events, hybrids and WhatsApp-based learning journeys conducted.

We also hosted our Thought Leadership series exploring the complex topic of the Church’s role in caring for teen parents. This three-part webinar series had 11 different speakers from a range of backgrounds help church leaders recognize ways to support that are good for mom, baby, dad and the rest of the family. We saw 174 people join us in these webinars. Want to explore this topic some more? Visit our resource page here.

Through this awareness-raising work, we have seen 501 churches commit themselves to care for families with children in their first thousand days of life. This brings the total network of committed churches to 1443.

We have equipped church leaders and volunteers

As churches catch the vision, we provide training to help deepen their impact in families through a range of workshops.

Our How to be a First Thousand Day friendly church workshop covers some of the ‘basics’ of how churches can get started. We hosted 26 of these workshops this year, with over 630 people completing it.

This year’s Practical Workshops focused on the 6 areas of how churches can use their existing strengths and practices to reach and strengthen families. We also hosted ‘sprints’, where people who are new to the network can engage with a topic that we had previously addressed. A total of 319 attendees were in in our 17 workshops. Explore our topics and recordings here.

Parenting is hard, and all parents need support. A powerful way that churches can build supportive relationships, share skills and information and refer families to additional services is through our Khathalela programme. We train a volunteer to visit a family at pivotal times in their journey of the first thousand days to connect relationally and share credible health behaviour. This year we refined this programme and hosted 8 cohorts via WhatsApp with 115 volunteers trained and deployed to strengthen families.

Our Fatherhood in the First Thousand Days programme equips churches to empower men to be more active, positive and present in the lives of their very young children. This is a powerful programme, with a high level of investment in the facilitators we train. We have been encouraged by the results, and across the 2 courses we ran, we saw 24 people trained. They have been (and will) be reaching 5-10 fathers each over the next few months.

We have supported churches in their efforts

Our resources page has been updated to better serve the church leaders and volunteers. You can explore the 150+ resources here.

We hosted 8 check-in and coaching meetings, reaching over 160 people. These serve to encourage key leaders and foster learning between churches.

Sustaining a volunteer-based ministry in a local church involves many different moving parts. We support churches in our Planning and Reviewing Workshops, aimed at helping leaders develop a right-sized plan for the coming months. We hosted 6 workshops with 95 churches represented.

A highlight for the year was our 5 Year Celebration. This event was hosted to recognize the various people that have been part of the Sikunye story since its inception. It was a moving time of hearing the stories, exploring the impact and being reminded of the hope that exists for the future of our country. We ran two of these celebrations, with 118 attendees. Read our impact report and watch the recording.

Far and wide

Most of our work is hosted at a distance, via WhatsApp and Zoom. This year it has been a privilege for us to be able to travel to different parts of South Africa to raise awareness and equip churches. We have had in-person events in: Durban, George, Khayelitsha, Mandeni, Nkomazi, Pietermaritzburg, Soshanguve, Soweto, Tsakane and Worcester.

Our 12 community mobilisers have an important role in drawing in churches to the network. One opportunity they have is to host pastors and run The Church & Early Life workshop using our video recordings. These hybrid events have wonderfully opened up doors and we have seen these events run in: Bloemfontein, Botshabelo, Qwaqwa, Viljoenskroon and Welkom.

WhatsApp and Zoom allow our messaging and training to reach into parts of the country that we would not otherwise be able to reach. We hosted 39 learning journeys on WhatsApp and 35 different Zoom events.

Through word of mouth, we have seen interest from other countries. We have seen churches join the network from Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and Namibia.

The power of partnership

The work Sikunye does is not possible without the work of others. We have joined hands with various stakeholders, both contributing and being positively impacted in the process. Special mention for 2024 includes partnering with Do More Foundation in their Babonise Campaign, promoting positive fatherhood in Nkomazi. We were featured in the 2024 Child Gauge, and continue to look to the Children’s Institute as a key thought leader. We have been part of the Child Theology Africa, the Breede Valley Young Child Forum and Connect Network. We presented at the Department of Health workshop on World Breastfeeding Week, exploring the role of churches and fathers in supporting breastfeeding.

We are only just getting started

At the end of a year filled with such a wide variety of events and workshops, we are filled with hope for the future. Our team has grown this year, and we feel like we are on the verge of even wider and deeper impact in our work in 2025.

Sikunye, we are in this together.