small change....

praxis group staff, guernsey

yesterday we were joined by a new longer term volunteer, katrin, all the way from switzeland, via guernsey. she has come to help out in the children's unit and our sports outreach clubs. katrin's boyfriend is from grabouw and she returned with matthew with a wonderful donation from his employer in guernsey.

staff at the praxis group collected £450.00 of loose change and the wonderful management team at the company then matched that so we were blessed with a total of £900. have a read of the article about this venture from the local guernsey newspaper here and see how any small change can be made for good!

newcastle team arrive

jesmond team on strand beach

last week we were delighted to welcome back joe williams, who volunteered with us before the whole of the village of hope was set up in 2008. joe spent three months with us on that first visit, but has bought six of his home church friends with him this time.

the team are from jesmond, newcastle, and they will be with us for just over two weeks. they are all very keen and will be helping out with the children in our unit and some of the holiday clubs that we support during this three week winter break. they will also start painting the new office space, which maz is very excited about.

winter arrives with avengence

family sit around fire and potjie

on tuesday afternoon we were basking in temperatures in the high 20's and could hardly imagine that within two days we would be sitting with frost on the ground and the need of a fire to keep warm. not only have the temperatures dropped but the amount of rain, falling as snow on the high mountain tops that surround the village of hope and the town of grabouw, has washed away the roads and caused some homes to become very unstable.

this community sits with a real conundrum, the winter weather which is much needed by the local farmers to send the apple trees and vines into hibernation comes at a price for those living in the townships and squatter camps, these people who live in little more than 'garden sheds' with no electricity or even basic sanitation have a tough time even in the summer months. it is hard to imagine how these people survive these harsh days.

there were many who left without soup today

we are able to do a little bit to help, every friday we collect soup from a local restaurant and next week we are going to be distributing some of the children's clothes that we have been sorting from the donations we receive. however today there were so many people, especially children that we had to turn away from the soup run, to see their eyes full of joy turn to sadness is so tough.

if you would like to help us make a real difference to those either affected or infected by HIV, AIDS and TB, as well as supporting the children in the poorest of the poor communities then please get in touch.

assi in again....

sorry that these updates aren't about better news but we must remember that most of the children that we provide a home to here at the village of hope are either infected with HIV and or TB, others like our wonderful 11 year old boy have even more complex medical conditions.

unfortunately the news on assi isn't great, after being discharged from the red cross children's hospital on his last visit, he was placed at our thembacare unit in athlone, cape town, which cares for more chronic cases, however his health has deteriorated so much that he has been readmitted to the hospital for further care and tests.

we are now in a place where we are asking what is the best for his future and although we never want or wish for any of our children to pass away we must ask God to hold him in His hands as we are coming to the end of our understanding of his case and we don't want him to suffer much more.

please pray for us and for assi who is a dear dear boy...

June News

Tim and Maz were away in Europe for two weeks during the month where they not only had chance to meet their new Grandson, Elijah, but also took time to visit the building/architect students in Stuttgart, along with their professor, which was great.
The remaining team headed up by Mel, Rob and Em did a fantastic job of ‘holding the fort’ but had to face some tough challenges especially with one of our children who was very sick.

Children’s Unit
During the month two of our nine children have been in hospital for long periods of time. Our wonderful 11 year old boy had a relapse and ended up back in the Red Cross children’s hospital in Cape Town where he received wonderful care to stabilise his lung condition. Unfortunately for us we felt it unwise to bring him back to the Village of Hope in Grabouw, based on our colder winter weather and higher altitude that could affect his health, but he has found a temporary home at Thembacare Athlone, which is one of our other Thembalitsha projects so we keep good contact with him and are working with ThembaCare to find a more long-term home for him.

The other child, a little girl of 18 months, suffered a seizure bought on by TB meningitis. This was rather scary for all involved but thankfully, through the good work of our team, she was transferred to the Tygerberg hospital where she is receiving treatment which we hope will mean that she will be back with us very soon. Her story is a sad one as her mother is also very sick at the moment and also in hospital.

The two little brothers who are with us at the moment celebrated their birthdays this month. They turned five and three and, as usual, we threw a party for them which is always a good excuse to bake a sticky cake for the kids (which the moms and volunteers appreciated too!!)

Sports Outreach and Community Work
Whilst Tim was away Arron, Shane and the Dutch students took a team of 13 players to Caledon (a town about 45 minutes drive away) to play a full 11 a side game against two teams from that area. The teams were once again made up of children who we work with each week from around our town. It’s great to see children from different areas, cultures and backgrounds come together to play. The report back was that the boys played very well and we won the first game and drew the second...Well done guys!
Our sports clubs continue to expand and we have been approached by another farm to introduce the life skills and lifestyle programme to their children, which we are looking forward to. This further expansion means that we are looking for a full time Sports Outreach intern who can come and work with us for a year. If you know of anyone then please contact us for further information. Strangely enough, the farm who has approached us is intending to use money that was given to them by a Waitrose social investment scheme. It’s great to see that these UK schemes are actually working and making  an impact on the people who need it here in SA.
We still have a huge need of second hand soccer boots, sizes 2 – 7 (UK), which will enable us to keep a stock for when we play what we hope will be more regular games against other clubs in the local area. If you have access to an old pair and live within kicking distance of Grabouw/Cape Town then we would love to hear from you. We are also on the look out for soccer balls as our supplies are being worn down and worn out as well as netball bibs for the girls with all the positions marked on them.

Other News
The Straw House:
The new house is nearly ready for it’s outer coat! We will be busy mixing up the lime-based plaster over the next few weeks and once that has been sorted we will reinstall the kitchen which was removed to allow us to reskim the floors, both inside and out. We can’t wait to get into the house now but we know that this will be a slow process.

Volunteers:
We are very busy with volunteers at the moment. This month we have welcomed two Rebeccas, who are friends so it’s very confusing for all of us! They stayed with us for a fortnight in their year out before uni and were a great blessing to us as we found out last minute that we had to send lots of our House Moms on an intensive three-week first aid course. As a result we were very short staffed and the Rebeccas did an excellent job filling in in the Children’s Unit. It would have been a real strain without them.
We have another volunteer from the States, which means that there are now more American than English volunteers staying with us (slightly scary!). Britton is actually working with our sister project, ThembaCare Grabouw, assisting with their Voluntary HIV and TB Testing Unit.
We said goodbye to Shane (or Sugar as he became known to us!). He has returned to America. We were sad to see him go and will miss him a lot.
Over the next three weeks we are going to be full to the gunnels as we receive two mission teams in succession. There is a sneaky feeling that they might have to turn their hands to plastering the house!!

Alternative Gifts:
This month, with the help of our lovely marketing team, we have launched a trial range of alternative gifts called Gifts of Hope which are available to buy through Ebay. To see what is on offer go to our facebook page and check out the Events section. There are a variety of gifts to suit all budgets and we can guarantee that they will be very much appreciated by us and the lucky recipient. If they prove popular we will make them a permanent feature and extend the range to include other Thembalitsha Projects. At the moment you can buy a chicken, veggie seeds, a football or even a pig!

Events
Please support some dedicated and crazy people who are going to great lengths to raise funds for us. Andy Gilbert and ex-volunteer Harry Hogarth are cycling from Calais to Lausanne (sponsor them here http://www.justgiving.com/cycle4hope) and Claire Gomulak, Liz Eades, Jess Stratford, Brady Roberts, Dayna Roberts, Sophie Child as well as Naz Bhana are running the London 10k Run for us (sponsor them here http://www.justgiving.com/10kThembaTeam2011  http://www.justgiving.com/Nasreen-Bhana)

If you have an idea for an event that you would like to organise for us do let us know as we would love to have more things planned in the diary for this year and desperately need more people to be doing stuff for us. We will do our best to support you in making it successful.


How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Become a regular monthly giver - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk


Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on volunteering for the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents from our website (http://www.thembalitshauk.org.uk/). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

saying goodbye on youth day

yesterday was 'youth day' here in south africa, a day off for the school children and a day where the nation remembers the events of june 16th 1976...see last years post here, this year we were part of an outreach at a local farm where around 200 children joined us for some fun, sports games and food, however the weather put an early end to our day.

it was a bit of a mixed day for us as we said our sad goodbye's to our latest wonderful dutch sports students from the HAN university. we have been so blessed by the help we have received from djuri, jasper and talitha who have not only enabled us to continue the wonderful work of our sports outreach into the community each and every afternoon but they have developed our lifestyle (healthy living) programme which now sits within the daily programmes that we run with the children aged between 9 - 15 in 5 different areas of grabouw.

these guys will be sadly missed but we trust that they will succeed in all that they plan to do in the future and look forward to welcoming them back someday to see the effect of their work in the lives of the children that they worked with....thanks guys you are superstars

fathers day gifts?

a pig, not your dad!

if you are anything like me, no not in the way that i am a tall long haired hippy who lives in south africa but some one who finds it really hard to find a suitable present for fathers day, then we have the answer to your problem.

the amazing uk marketing team (yes those 3 part time volunteers) have come up with a wonderful way to save a long and unsuccessful trip around your local town centre and have put together some very imaginative presents for you to purchase for your dad to help him realise he is someone very very special.

..now we must state that your dad won't actually receive the present, we will!, however if he wants to check he could get on a long flight to cape town to come and visit, which we would love for him to do, but we will promise that with the money raised from the sale of the items that appear on our thembalitshauk facebook site will go directly to the children that we are helping.

if you follow the link from our facebook page you will then see the items ranging from a soccer ball, or a packet of seeds to a lovely little piggy, you can then purchase them via the ebay site thus making your quest easier and giving your dad some satisfaction in the knowledge that he didn't get another novelty gift that will sit on his desk, by his bed gathering dust but that he is really really make a difference to children living with HIV and AIDS here in south africa!

more crazy fundraisers!

it seems that the summer weather in europe has encouraged a few more crazy people to step up and raise funds via different means for the work that we are doing out here in south africa....please visit the following links to the justgiving pages that have been set up to support the work that we are doing with children infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB.

andy and harry have set up two separate pages, no competition then guys! to raise funds as they ride from calias to laussane see harry's page here and andy's here.

mark lucas is walking up the three highest peaks in the UK in under 24 hours (or so he hopes), that happens this weekend so please visit his page here, with a wonderful photo of mark!

and some other crazy people are running the london 10k in july please visit and donate to their page here.

thanks to everyone who supports us, whether that's via a fundraising event, a one off donation or monthly giving, your money really does make a difference.

wanderers return

tim and maz have arrived back at the village of hope project after their short holiday in europe where they enjoyed catching up with family, meeting their new grandson, eli, and visiting the ukuqala team in their university city of stuttgart in germany. thankfully they didn't eat any cucumber whilst they were away but it now seems that beansprouts were the things to avoid anyway!

they arrived back to find a busy village of hope, during their time away two girls from england, both called rebbecca, a young lady from the USA who is going to be working with thandi at thembacare and returning volunteer tyler had arrived. unfortunately one of our new little girls had been taken into hospital with TB meningitis and the team have been running around trying to care for her and her mother who is also very sick with AIDS.

the village of hope is also once again without internet, the phonelines were stolen at the end of last week so our updates and replies to emails will be limited (i am currently sitting at thembacare grabouw writing this short update!) please pray that this gets sorted soon so we can keep in contact with the outside world....it's good to be back!