December News

Celebrating a new home for our long-term little girl

The children’s unit continues to roll along with the gentle flow of admissions and discharges.

Our little characters always keep us on our toes and bring smiles to our faces as they blossom in the loving environment our House Moms provide.
Hearing them pick up the English, Afrikaans and Xhosa languages is always a marvel and put us oldies to shame!
The school children had an outing to Bird World which they thoroughly enjoyed and were involved in an end of term presentation. One little girl received a certificate for 100% attendance. So proud!

We again had two children successfully placed into loving homes. The first was a little girl who spent a couple of months with us and whose mother sadly died whilst the child was in our care. The grandmother from the Eastern Cape was willing and able to take on the responsibility of this dear little girl and over one weekend an aunt travelled the 12-hour journey to Grabouw, collected the child and made the return trip!! What a mission! - but it demonstrates the commitment this family is willing to make.  The aunt really blessed us as she shed tears of gratitude because we had taken care of her niece through a very difficult time.  We have heard since that our girl is doing really well and is loving being with her cousins.


Our second child has been placed into a wonderful family on a foster order initially but soon to be adopted. This is again a real answer to our prayers.

One of our long-standing children has gone back into family care! It’s going to mean a massive change to our Village of Hope family dynamic but it seems her sister will also be placed with the aunt and so the girls will grow up together.  Again unfortunately the mother has died very recently during this process but we just marvel at the timing of all things.

With Christmas coming we hope that all our current children will be able to experience a family Christmas with willing volunteer careers for the day and possibly some with their own families.


Community Work

Sports Outreach:
It was a record-breaking month for sports. We hosted our largest sports Saturday to date with nearly 200 children attending. It was fantastically organised by Yorram and Annemike, our Dutch students and the children had a ball. The sports outreach takes a break over the school holidays and Yorram and Annemike will be returning to Holland. We will miss them – they have really become part of the team.

Rainbow Smiles:
We took the wonderful children from Rainbow Smiles to the beach to celebrate the end of the school year.  We try and do beach days every summer because it’s a simple outing but the kids really enjoy it and we live in such a beautiful area of the world. It is so lovely to see these children, who have to cope with so much, carefree for an afternoon.


Other News

Volunteers:
We said ‘Au Revoir’ to Kathryn Vernon who has been serving with us for the past 3 months. We will miss her bubbly personality but know that we will see her again at some time in the future. We also had a visit from two English lovelies, Cosette and Lauren, who know Maz. They helped us for two-weeks and were very good and helping to sort lots of ticket cutting for our Hope 2012 music festival!

World AIDS Day across the globe:
In the UK our loyal team of fundraisers organised a fantastic evening of music and comedy which featured ‘special’ video clips from Tim and Maz. It raised a bit of cash and was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.

The Parlotones, the headline act at Hope 2012

Here in South Africa we were very excited to host a music festival. It was held here in Grabouw and featured some of the country’s top bands to raise awareness for World AIDS Day and Thembalitsha. The event attracted over 2000 people, went off without a hitch and resulted in some fantastic feedback. We are extremely thankful to all those who prayed for us in the planning of this event and the team of local volunteers who assisted us. It was a real leap of faith but was worth it just for the exposure. Check out pictures from the day on our facebook page. We are hoping to repeat the event again next year so watch this space!


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 (it doesn’t have to be cycling)!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise R10000s 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

Thembalitsha Charity Tune!!
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. Everyone can benefit from this! The fantastically generous and talented folk of up and coming British band, Being Buffalo, have released a track especially for us! And it sounds great too! We get 50% of every sale so please let your friends and family know about this! You can find the track for download here:

http://beingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/album/hope-charity-download