About us
A young organisation, built around an old idea
Mona With The Children is a Bahá'í-inspired non-profit organisation working across Tshwane. We're small, and we're serious about the young people we work with.
What guides us
Three focus areas hold everything we do
Community social development
Working alongside families and schools so that support reaches young people where they actually are, not just where it's convenient to deliver it.
Where our name comes from
Mona
The organisation is named for Mona Mahmudnizhad, a seventeen-year-old arrested in Shiraz, Iran, on 23 October 1982, together with her father. She was held for nearly eight months before she was executed by hanging on 18 June 1983, alongside nine other Bahá'í women. One of the charges against her was misleading children and youth. What she had actually been doing was teaching children's classes.
A little over two years later, a song called Mona with the Children was written about her and reached the charts in Canada. It is from that song that this organisation takes its name. A young person who, given every reason to stop, kept teaching.
We hold ourselves to that same standard today: the most useful thing an adult can do for a young person is to show up and teach them something true.
Who's behind it
Our directors
Five people who lead the organisation and steer its programmes.
Samson Junior Von Eck
Director
Penelope Italia Tombisa
Director
Gloria Ntuli
Director
Farah Naimi
Director
Foad Naimi
Director
Part of a worldwide effort
The same work, in many places
Study circles, children's classes and junior youth groups like ours are running in communities all over the world: the same activities, the same materials, adapted to wherever they happen to be.
Want to see who delivers our programmes?
Career Guidance & Life Orientation runs on volunteer professionals giving up their time.