saying goodbye....

lauren, jess, kat and ashlyn with some of our
thembacare staff who they have been working with

over the last few months we have been blessed to have the help of a plethora of volunteers who have been working with both the village of hope via our children's unit, sports outreach and rainbow smiles club, but also with our sister project thembacare grabouw.

this afternoon we held our regular wednesday 'church service' at thembacare, which was lead by our wonderful team from midcities in the usa, more of them later in the week, but this was the last 'service' for four of our volunteers, jess, kat, lauren and ashlyn.

we want to thank and honor them for all their hard work, commitment and willingness to give so freely of their time to help those that we seek to support. we will really miss each and everyone of them and whilst some have really got their teeth into their own project, like jess and the support she has been to rejoyce and the other team members at our rainbow smiles HIV support group, or katia with her medical side, the others are invaluable and play a big role in 'just being big sisters' to the children that live here with us and those we work with in the community.

so we say a sad farewell but each of them knows that they will always have a place at the village of hope should our paths cross again in the future.

as per a previous post entitled 'an alternative view' please visit jess' and kats blogs via that link and laurens but clicking on this link

our 7 year old boy leaves the village of hope (our 24th!)

well what a week we have had and to cap it all we have some further wonderful news to share. after over 2 and a half years with us our little 7 year old boy has now left us to start his new life with his grandparents on a local farm.

this boy was placed with us at very short notice in september 2009, his mother had been a patient at our thembacare grabouw facility and although the amazing team there were able to stabilise her she is unable to care for the little boy herself. you could read about his arrival during a film shoot here.

the news of his departure is due again to maz, the house moms and mommy mel who have not only worked with him but his grandparents to bring this reunification back into his family home, he becomes our 24th child to be placed home or with foster care.

over the last few weeks he has been counting down the sleeps till he was able to go home and such was his hurry on friday evening to get into the car we were unable to capture a decent photo capturing the moment, but that in a way is great news and we are so glad that he was happy to 'go home'.


we would ask you to continue to pray for him, that his family will continue to work with him, ensuring that he attends his monthly counseling meetings and hospital visits and although he has gone home he will spend every school day afternoon with us at the village of hope as we provide his grandparents with some after school care.....

finishing touches

new bathroom mural and words.

since our children's unit received a wonderful repaint from the infocus team our longer term volunteers, ably lead by katia, have been busy installing the murals that were painted over. one can never recreate what was lost but we are so pleased with the work that kat and her team of industrious volunteers have achieved.

we have a wonderful underwater scene around that bath and nappy changing area, complete with two nemo's an amazing octopus who oversees the words for bath and toothbrush etc which are written up in english, afrikaans and xhosa to encourage the children to learn the names of things.

katia creating our family tree!

in the living area we now have a family tree complete with leaves and flowers with the faces of our discharged children whom we are keen to remember as part of the history of the village of hope.

we also have a new poster with the thembalitsha charity details on which hopefully will encourage over visitors to donate once they have seen the work that we are doing with these children who are infected or affected by HIV, AIDS or TB.

thanks kat you are a real star and have blessed us so much with your artistic skills.

two of our girls looking for themselves
on the new poster!

our 23rd miracle quickly follows!

saying goodbye to her little village of hope
brother, so sweet!

what a couple of weeks it's been and all down to the hard work of maz and the local social workers who are seeking placement for our children. today we have the amazing news that so soon after our 22nd child being placed home we have our 23rd to celebrate.

this little girl has been with us for over a year, she was identified to us by our local ARV doctor who had concerns over the compliance of her medication and during her time with us she suffered some major trauma with her being hospitalised on a couple of occasions due to the bought of TB meningitis which hit her soon after she arrived with us. in fact if she hadn't been placed into our care there is a likely hood that she would have passed away due to the seizure brought on by the meningitis.

off home with uncle tim b

however that's all in the past and with some great commitment shown by her mother, who has visited every day for the last two months to build up that bond and to be taught by our team about caring for a child with an chronic illness, we confident to be able to place her home with her mother who will receive support from our thembacare home based care team to ensure that this reunification is fully successful.

please hold onto your seats for our next child to be returned home which should be at the end of this week with another following to a foster mom next week as well. things are really moving on with our children's cases and we want to thank God for his answer to our prayers for these children who are loved and cared for by our amazing team here at the village of hope but our desire is for them to be placed back home with a loving family after they have been stabilised by us and that is happening for so many of our children at the moment!

June News

The rains have come which is a welcome sight for the farmers in the area and those of us with solid roofs over our heads but not necessarily for the majority of people living in Grabouw. Fire is the enemy in the summer and rain the enemy in winter. Right now many people in the informal settlements have unplanned rivers running through their homes, soggy beds and cold feet which makes every day that much harder to live. Fortunately this year we have had the opportunity to help relieve some people by repairing their roofs. See our post from earlier this month.

We are also in need of volunteers this coming autumn. See the bottom of this post for more info.

Children’s Unit
This months sees a lot of change in the Children’s Unit. We have been able to give all the walls a fresh coat of paint (see our volunteers section) which is a change to the building, but we are also seeing a change in faces of children who stay with us as we send three of them home. Bittersweet as always.

After being with us for two and half years we are finally seeing our seven-year-old boy go to live with his grandparents on one of the local farms.  His grandparents also care for his invalid mother and will still be needing the support from us but it is in his best interest for him to live with his family.  He has been staying with them for school holidays and will be discharged into their care on Friday when the schools break for the winter holiday.  He is very excited and is counting the sleeps.  But we won’t be saying goodbye as he will however continue to come to us for after school care during term time to help his family with the issues they face around transport.

I don’t know if you remember us mentioning in last month’s newsletter but our three-year-old girl’s mum has stuck to the commitment dictated by the social worker and has been to coming to care for daughter her every day for two months. This is fantastic news and now we, together with the social worker, are hopeful and confident that she is ready to manage the responsibility of looking after her daughter. So, after a home visit this weekend, we just have to sort the paperwork then she will be discharged after having stayed with us for 15 months!!!  She will continue to be monitored by the ThembaCare community team and I'm sure the ARV clinic will alert us if they identify any problems. She was really looking forward to going home for her visit at the weekend and gave us all a cheery wave and didn’t look back. Always the best way!

We are very relieved to have a proactive new social worker at Child Welfare and he is making a small dent in the backlog of cases that are on his desk, Boy B being one of them.  His sixteen-year-old mother, who lost her mother last year and does not appear to have any local support structure, has followed the social worker’s advice to have him put in foster care.  The social worker is very keen to see the mother supported and we hope there will be a good follow up programme for her as she only really a child herself.  She has no ID or birth certificate and needs a family member with an ID to assist her in getting hers sorted.  There is a possibility of a sister living nearby so lets hope. The fantastic new social worker has sorted our boy’s birth certificate in record time and has identified a foster mother in Grabouw. We hope that she will visit this week and then we will take Boy B to hers for some of the day for the next two weeks.  The court date is the 28th so we are praying everything works out well.

With the prospect of having three spare beds within the next few weeks we are in need of your prayers. We are still awaiting our official registration from Social Development and until then it is unlikely that the magistrate will agree to place any new children with us. With so much need in our community it would be very sad for these beds to be empty. Please pray that the registration is passed quickly so we can continue to do what we need to do to support these children.


Sports Outreach and Community Work
Our most recent Dutch students have completed their time with us but they provided us with their Thesis which included a study of our sports outreach entitled: 'Analysing Today's Positions To Score More Goals In The Future' (nice heading eh?!). They interviewed 100 children who are currently part of our sports clubs and 100 children who are not to see whether our clubs assist in social development. We were very encouraged by some of their findings:

'The village of hope sports programme has a positive influence of the affective and social development of the participating children'


'All girls from ages 9-14 years score better on self esteem than the girls of the control group'


'The experimental group (those who attend the outreach) scores significantly better on topics, school skills, sport skills and behavioural attitude'


'The Village of Hope sports programme bought together children of the different areas (culturally different i.e coloured and black children) together, thye are friends now'


'This is all because of the Village of Hope: At first all the kids were staying in different places, the programme brings them together'


'Even at home it has changed: At first they were talking bad language at home but now that has changed'

It’s always exciting to see that we are making a difference to these children’s lives and encourages us to keep on keeping on!

Other News
Volunteers:
As we mentioned briefly at the beginning of our news, we now have a newly painted children’s unit. This is because we have had a flying visit from a mission team on a mission!!! Our good friends from InFocus Church, in Augusta, Georgia flew a team of 12 very capable hard-working (as always) individuals over for a quick, five days of service at Village of Hope. The children’s unit really looks like new and we can’t believe how much they managed to achieve in the short time they were here. They worked late into the evening and they also managed to fit in helping out with sports and serving at ThembaCare too! Katia has also reinstated the murals in the children’s bathroom and it is all looking brilliant. Our biggest challenge during the painting was what to do with the children so that they didn’t mess up the paint!!!

We have also welcomed another new volunteer, Ashlyn, from the USA. She is the sister of Britton, who worked with us last year and it’s always lovely to get to know another member of the family.

Speaking of volunteers. We are, for once, running low on volunteers for the end of the year. This is a rare occurrence but means we are on the look out for helpers during this period - Particularly from September onwards. If you have some free time, and the capability to come out and serve at Village of Hope, we would love to hear from you. Please read the details and fill out one of our application forms via the website. We will treat you well!



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!!!
• 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!
• Pray – need we say more?!

For more information contact us fundraiser@thembalitsha.org.za


Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff 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 Thembalitsha please check out our website or email us at volunteer@thembalitsha.org.za.

Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!


Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation


Can you cycle 10 miles? 100 miles? Either way we’d love you to join us on Saturday 8 September as we challenge ourselves to cycle whilst raising money for Thembalitsha.

The challenge:
8 - 16 Miles: A there and back again route from Aylesbury on picturesque lanes in the Chilterns, suitable for all kinds of cyclists and all ages and including families, you just need to be able to cycle comfortably for around an hour at an easy pace. Entry fee is £5 for adults, £2 for children.

100 Miles: A wonderful route through the Chilterns and the Thames Valley before lunch at a riverside inn, then on to the South Downs and the sea at Brighton. You’ll be rewarded with a stopover at a farm and a hearty breakfast before being driven home the next day. Suitable for regular or more experienced cyclists, you need to be able to cycle at a moderate pace for most of the day. Entry fee is £25, which includes overnight accommodation, breakfast and return transport.

Whichever personal challenge you choose, our challenge to you is to raise as much money as you can for Thembalitsha in sponsorship. Are you up for it?!
Contact us: office@thembalitshauk.org.uk to sign up!

fathers day follows youth day

it seems slightly ironic that over the weekend south africa remember it's young people with a public holiday on saturday and yesterday we joined the rest of the world to honor our dads on fathers day. ironic because here in south africa we have one of the highest rates of fatherless children in the world, and the fact that some of those who fought to have their schooling taught in their mother tongue have either succumbed to the HIV pandemic or failed to be the fathers that their children need.

south african men are no different to many others around the world, black, white, coloured, indian, who are failing their children by thinking of themselves rather than their responsibilities towards their children, yes a relationship may have broken down, or in some cases never started in the first place and that comes from either side, but our failure as men to provide the role model that our young people need, especially the boys, is hard to accept.

so we do honour those who stood up for their rights way back in soweto in june 1976, of which we remembered on the youth day holiday that we had on saturday but we also call them, and all fathers around the world, to become the fathers that i believe God calls us to be to the next generation no matter what has gone on before.

a flying visit....

we always love to welcome people to visit our various thembalitsha projects around the western cape, be it for a few days, a couple of weeks or even a longer term placement however we don't have many people who come for just a couple of hours but on monday it was my pleasure to be able to show brendon around two of our projects, thembacare grabouw and the village of hope.

i love to take people to see the work we are involved with in our local community, many of you will know that the village of hope is much more than our 9 bed children's unit and that thembacare serve more than the 7 people that stay in their inpatient unit receiving hospice care from our amazing team.

our work extends far beyond those boundaries, like the 7 sports outreach clubs we run each and every weekday afternoon during school term, or the rainbow smiles support group which meets every friday, along with our home based palliative care team who visit over 450 patients in the community who are living with HIV...we even venture out into the local businesses providing HIV, TB and blood sugar testing via our mobile unit, which is pulled around by my dependable bakkie.

during brendons short visit to grabouw he was able to pick up some of the sights, sounds, feelings and cultures that make up our wonderful little town, he was able to visit some of the poorest of the poor whilst still seeing the hope that is being provided by the likes of thembalitsha through our outreach programmes.

please visit brendons blog post, entitled, 'postitive about cape apples', to read what he thought about his short time with us, obviously things aren't always what they seem but i think brendon has picked up on the key reasons we do what we do here in south africa, i hope you will be encouraged and also challenged by his post.

God's provision

the girls sort the roof nails whilst the boys
play around on the roof!

yesterday was a busy time, not only did we place our 22nd child back home with his grandmother, which is a core calling to the village of hope team, but we we were also able to bless a local worker who you may remember that i posted about in my 'some days that bite back' post a couple of weeks ago.

tim and heinrich from our village of hope maintenance team, and 3 of our volunteers, jess, kate and lauren, were able to take some of the tin sheeting to the home of a wonderful young lady who virtually leads the rainbow smiles HIV support group for children aged 9-15 in grabouw. the rainbow smiles club is an initiative with the ARV clinic at the government day hospital, ABBA family counseling and thembacare grabouw (of which we receive no direct funding to run, so any help towards those weekly costs would also be greatly appreciated).

the home next to the local toilet blocks

the roofing team spent the morning stripping off the old leaky roof and replacing it with the new, this is a wonderful way to bless some of the people in our community, not only connecting those that might have with those who perhaps don't but also working with the young ladies boyfriend to encourage him that sometimes you need to help yourself too by engaging him in the building project himself.

we know that we can't help everyone and even yesterday the team were inundated by request of help from other people in the neighborhood, however we understand that the best way to move forward with this reroofing project is to work alongside our thembacare nurses to identify other people in dire need.

please keep your eye on this blog to find out where the next blessing may be poured out and if you are able to provide labour or more materials then please contact us as we seek to bless those in need.

our 22nd miracle

going home!

for those of you that have been following us since we opened our children's unit in april 2009 you will know that the heart of the village of hope is to see the little ones that have been placed into our care be reunited with their families as soon as we are able. for some of these children that can be a quick process and the three month court orders soon come to an end and without knowing it the child has left us to continue his (or her) life with their family.

however this isn't the case for all of our children, some of whom have been with us since we opened. the village of hope is a step down unit to enable us to stabilise the children on their medication (with medical oversight given by our thembacare sisters), ensuring they meet their hospital appointments and have regular contact with their families to ensure that that bond isn't broken, however the social circumstances of most of those families, who are all either affected or infected by HIV, AIDS or TB, has a huge impact as to how quickly we can make the transition back into their home lives.

since opening we have placed 21 children either back with their maternal family or into foster care, each of those cases were complex and without lots of prayer, and therefore the intervention of God through us, many of those would still be living away from the love of their families.

over the last few months maz has been busy with our local social workers, our thembacare home based care team and his grandmother to ensure that she knows the signs to watch for as she seeks to provide the care that this little life will need under her eye, yes the medication is difficult to understand and it is a huge commitment to take on but we are happy that she has learnt enough to look after him well so today we have the great news that we placed our 22nd child back with his grandmother in an informal settlement in grabouw..

her home is a small tin shack with no running water or electricity but it is full of love and it was a wonderful experience to see her taking her grandson back home today....over the next few weeks and months we will continue to monitor this little life via home visits by the team here at the village of hope and thembacare team to ensure all is going well but we wish the family lots of blessings as they provide a home for this little boy.

impressed with our dutch students, again!

angelique and marijn

since we started work at the village of hope we have always had a heart to enable people to take the step from their first world existence into the lives of the poor and needy third world which surrounds us here in south africa.

there hasn't been a day in the last three and a half years where our volunteer unit has been empty, in fact we have welcomed over 300 people on to the project, some have come on a visit and felt the call to return for the longer term, like rob and emily house, or mel kidd and tim berger, some have stayed for a night during a mission trip whilst others have volunteered for 3 to 6 months and we thank them all...you know who you are!

with the direct action that we have via our village of hope community work, sports outreach and rainbow smiles HIV support group, and our sister project thembacare grabouw with their seven bed inpatient unit and outpatient care work we are able to offer people a chance to work with some of the most sick and needy people in the world.

over the years our relationships have developed with international churches sending return mission teams back to us again and again, the infocus team who spent time with us last week are an example of such groups. we are  also bless to be able to provide practical opportunities for students to come and serve with us, this can be seen via our relationship with the university of stuttgart who have committed to a long term partnership with the village of hope and they have already blessed us with building two eco house under their ukuqala projects.

one of their power point slides

yesterday i was attended the latest presentations from the most recent group of students from the HAN university in holland, maz attended a presentation last week as well. last november me and maz were able to make a visit to their campus in nijmegen and their partnership with our local municipality encourages students to come and make a difference to non government and government projects in and around grabouw.

over this last few months we have worked with nutritional, physio and sports management students who serve with us at the village of hope.

the impact and input that the HAN students have at the village of hope is invaluable, over the years they have enabled us to set up policies and procedures to enable us to run an effective children's unit and in the wider community to develop our sports outreach programme with written documents to help stimulate and engage new ideas on health and life style awareness to the 200 or so children that we work with each and every term time afternoon.

the latest sports students (angelique and marijn) have been working on their thesis which will help us evaluate the effectiveness's of the sports outreach programme, capturing data to see what impact, if any, our weekly clubs have on the behaviour, social awareness and self esteem of the children we work with to ensure we are not wasting time providing something that is having no tangible impact.

at the moment i am busy reading through their thesis, evaluating their findings which compared 100 children who attend our clubs against 100 who don't, i will then have to see how we will implement their suggestions for us to be more effective both in the use of local resource, our time and planning for the future!

this team of students have excelled themselves in helping us to serve our community, even the guys who are part of other disciplines have helped out with some of our sports clubs and we are really going to miss them when they return home next week.

we want to thank the HAN university for their willingness to partner with the thembalitsha foundation through the village of hope and we want to especially thank the students who are a real God sent as we seek to impact the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in the world.

humbled by their joy....

this afternoon i had the pleasure of attending the latest presentations by the dutch sports students who have been serving with us over the last 5 months, and i will post about their wonderful help and support tomorrow as i have a further post to share about the other experience i had after enjoying their presentation.

keeping the home fires burning!

for those of you living in the western cape you will know that we have been hit by a severe storm which not only bought some much needed rain (for some) but high winds which i'm not sure any of us really wanted, save a few mad suffers who might benefit from the waves over the weekend! this type of weather is not unusual for this time of year in the cape but when it comes after a week of temperatures in the mid 20's with sunny hot days then its a bit more of a shock.

during the presentations from the dutch students we were battling to hear what they said due to the wind and rain, but once outside the full force of the storm really hit me. we were due to be running our sports outreach at the two farm clubs this afternoon which follows the weekly update/download and sports planning meeting but seeing as though the weather was so bad i had to let our sports mentors know that not only the sport but also the meeting had been cancelled.

happy family after a simple act of kindness

upon arriving at the home of one of our mentors, whom he shares with his brother and sister who are keen members of our sports club in the iraq informal settlement, i found the family huddled around their fire, and who can blame them, however this fire was set in an old metal bath tub which was full of simple wet twigs and with no chimney the single room which has no windows but an open door was full of eye streaming smoke.

after discussing the situation about the weather and the lack of the meeting or sports this afternoon he informed me that the tin sheeting which makes up the roof, and also most of the sides of his home, was leaking, the wind blowing the horizontal rain not only through the roof but also the walls too.

following my blog last monday about the different situations i found myself in, entitled some days that bite back, which can be read by clicking on this link, a friend from our elgin united church offered to help out with some tin sheeting which he had laying around.....we are hoping to get out to sort the roof of one of our helpers from rainbow smiles early next week, which i admit is a little late for this bout of rain, but this afternoon i thought that it would be a blessing to our sports mentor and his family if i could at least make a few of those sheets available to him.

preparing the fire outside

i returned to the village of hope only to find that the sheets we had been blessed with were a different profile to those already on the boys home, so instead of taking them i gathered together some old sail cloth and a few heavy blocks for them to make a hasty repair which might enable them to patch the worst leaks, which as always appeared over their beds!

i also picked up a basket full of dry wood so as to bless them with extra fuel which wasn't green and therefore wouldn't give off the smoke which really made my eyes run....it wasn't much but i think they were pleased with the thought.

whilst i was on my return visit with my simple supplies i saw the father of another family making a fire in an old paint pot, which he was carrying in with a stick into their tin home, upon inspection they invited me in for a coffee, which was much appreciated, we sat huddled around this fire, again with much smoke, and shared stories which made us all laugh, due to my lack of xhosa and their lack of english.

taking the fire into the home, a risky business!

after taking their teenage daughter down to the local spazza store to buy a cabbage to make up their 'watery' soup i left them to their lives whilst i came back to mine feeling very humbled by the joy that i had experienced during my hour or so spent in that wonderful little community.

i can't say that i did much and i know that there are literally thousands of others in our community with the same if not more immediate and desperate needs but i was able to bless around 10 people and if i only achieved that with a smile, which i hope showed them that not only myself but Jesus cared for them, then i sit here a little happier than i would have done if i had i turned a blind eye and gone home to sit in front of my warm fire complete with chimney.

personal note:- i don't want to belittle anything that has gone on in the past in this wonderful if not challenged country and i know that some of my forefathers may have had a lot to do with that, i can take that on the chin and only apologies for that on their behalf, but i would challenge anyone currently living in south africa not to be touched by the stories that i share on this blog. we might not look the same or even speak the same language, but surely we can't ignore the fact that Jesus calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves. 


it seems hard to cast everyone under the same banner because of things that have happened in the past, or even now as we sit here reading this blog, but we will never build up the trust and relationships that must develop if this country is to move forward so lets start somewhere cause to blame the past is so yesterday!

yes the people i shared the afternoon with do have their own homes in the transkei (eastern cape) and yes they have chosen to come to grabouw to seek employment offered by the highly labour intensive apple production, but none of them was complaining about their lot, they weren't asking for a hand out but seeing their plight i offered a helping hand to make their situation a little easier.

the thembalitsha foundation offers hope through health, education and training, we seek to develop people to a place of self reliance, but there are some days where one is called just to give of themselves and from the wealth that we have, be that financial, education or time, and that's all i did today and i would challenge you to do the same too.

so for any of you reading this with an internet connection, which should mean that you have electric power, a roof over your head with a fire and a chimney, which will also probably mean that you have a fridge with some food in then please don't tell me that you are cold, tired or hungry, cause i have met some people today for whom that is really true and they're not complaining!....

....i was spending some time thinking of how i should end this post, please don't hear this as a triad from some self righteous religious nut who thinks he has got it all sorted and therefore you should totally understand where i am coming from. no i am an ordinary guy who has to daily die to self, putting the thoughts of others first and asking God for wisdom, understanding and knowledge to cope with all that i am faced with everyday.

what i would like to finish with is the thought that those of us who try to follow Jesus and his teachings, becoming 'little christs' to this world, surely have an understanding that it's not great to be the one who casts the first stone and yet its us that so often we sit in judgement of those who seem unable to help themselves whilst sitting with all the power known to man in the universe at our disposal.

we can chose to look the other way, to have such an important diary of important things that need to get done, including racing to an event at church where we have been given a word to encourage others but fail to stop to help those along the way, or we may be the worship leader who is called to usher the people into the presence of God via song and liturgy, but yet be so busy that we miss what God has really called us to do.

as i see it God gives us ample opportunity to serve those in need, indeed james tells us in God's word to us that true religion is found in feeding the widows and the orphans, or maybe as Jesus would say 'to love our neighbour as our self', 'to go the extra mile', 'give one of your two coats', or pounds, to those without, this i believe is our chance to see God's kingdom come through us and that is what i find hard to accept when we can become so consumed by self that we miss God's call on our lives.

the soup run continues!

collecting the soup from the orchard farmstall

blessing the local creche with the lovely warm soup

people are often willing to get involved in helping those in need but are either unable to spare the time or know who to link up with to enable them to do that...and this was the case when a few years ago i chatted to the owner of a local restaurant as we tried to encourage them to get involved with the local community in a tangible way. they didn't want to give money and couldn't spare the time for a visit to see what we were doing at the village of hope, both via the children's unit or our sports outreach however the way they could do this is by committing to making us up a batch of soup which we would transport into the creche in rooidakke as well as iraq informal settlement each and every friday. this worked well for the last few years however our initial suppliers restaurant is due to close for the winter next week so we were left with a bit of a dilemma.

whilst this isn't really part of our main calling towards those infected or affected by HIV, AIDS and TB it does allow us to be a conduit between those that have and those in need, after a few conversations we have been blessed with the provision of soup from the orchard farmstall who have taken up the batten to supply us with this much needed soup for the foreseeable future, and although all we have to do is deliver the soup from their kitchen to the creches in the community it is a wonderful way to see these people gain an extra nutritional meal which will help with their TB medication.

can you fill these spaces?

could you be sitting here this time next year?

as you may be aware the village of hope is run by staff of 13 full time paid workers, ranging from our house moms to a maintenance team but these key people are supported by a team of full and mid term volunteers who oversee the management of the project, run sports outreach, invest in the house moms, do the finances, write policies around the care of the children, complete the school and shopping runs, take the children to their medical appointments and assisting in running our adolescent HIV support groups, the list is almost endless and this all takes time and dedication to undertake the running of such a large project which is also linked to our sister project, thembacare grabouw where there are other opportunities to serve.

these mid and long term volunteers also oversee the short term mission teams who join us for 10-14 days throughout the year and who are an invaluable resource to carry out the larger tasks much like this weeks team from augusta have undertaken with the repainting of the children's unit.

we have never been short of volunteers and with the amazing support of the HAN students from holland we are able to undertake the day to day running of the project most of the time.....however we currently have a couple of opportunities for the right people to come and join our team for a mid to long term period.

our sports outreach is growing and with our 40 week programme now in a format which can be rolled out into other areas we are seeking a longer term volunteer/s who can help run and coordinate our sports outreach programme which currently takes place in 7 different areas of grabouw each and every weekday afternoon. this could be an opportunity for an intern or recently qualified student, however before you get too excited there are a few things that you must consider, firstly you must be able to drive a 4x4 vehicle, this is how we transport most of the sports equipment to the clubs, many of which are run in areas where a normal car wouldn't be able to access, you would also be able to lead and stimulating an existing team of willing local mentors (volunteers), and finally and most importantly you would have a passion for children, especially those aged between 9 - 15 years, who we work with bringing life skills, health awareness and the love of Jesus via sports!

...there are other opportunities around social work and our wider children's work, this post or posts would involve supporting the current children who live with us at the village of hope as we seek to place them back into their homes in the community, most of our children have complex medical and social issues which means that this is a job with lots of pressure but is also so rewarding when it comes together with a successful reunification back into their families. with this in mind there is a need for this person/s to complete home visits to ensure the 20 or so children who have already been placed home are still healthy and being looked after by their carers in the community. helping out with support groups and stimulating the children who live with us at the village of hope is also a key area of this role.

if you are interested in coming to live in grabouw, south africa, and are keen to help support our work with those infected and affected by HIV, AIDS and TB in an area which is rife with these health issues, if you are someone happy to share their lives with our other volunteers in the self contained volunteer unit, and are self motivated and have a love of kids and empowering people then we would love to hear from you!