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!
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