more birthdays!

making sure everyone is enjoying the party food!

yesterday we celebrated the third birthday of our dear little girl who has been struggling with her walking and speaking ever since she arrived with us late last year. emma and shannon did a great job of putting on the party with the kids making the table cloth and party hats, as well as playing games and barbara continued to bless us with the food which was enjoyed by all the kids, house moms and volunteers.

if you would like to find out more about this wonderful girl you can read more about her and the development she has made since she has been with us by clicking on the following links, her arrival and her with her walking frame.

new sports outreach starts in xolanaledi

i am feeling a little frustrated at the moment as my laptop has had a big breakdown so i am having to use other computers to post on the blog and uploading photos, even a simple task like completing our village of hope internet banking is providing difficult as i don't want to sync my cell phone with devices that i'm not going to be using in the future, however that said i have found a way of posting this blog and i am so encouraged about the story that i am prepared to work around my technical challenges!

we have been so busy over the last few weeks, which you will have read about in our august newsletter and even today we are wanting to share about the new landscaping that is taking place around the entrance to the project as well as another birthday party, the end of which is still taking place as i write this (i can hear the music to the 'pass the parcel' as i type), however the photos and stories around those items will have to wait for another day as i am wanting to update you all on the wonderful news about our new sports outreach club which started today.

our four sports mentors full equipped to run
 their new club

as you will be aware we are having a huge impact on over 250 children each week, those are the 9-15 year olds who attend our older club, there are hundreds of little ones, aged two to eight who have been ably entertained by boniface who looks after those children, with our bible based sports outreach and lifeskills programme. the main area of growth over the last year has been with our local 'sports mentors'/'peer to peer educators' who we have developed to assist and even run some of the more established groups.

the mentors sharing the lifeskill and bible story to
over 20 new boys who joined them at the new club

today was a real testimony to how well the new sports mentors are doing as i challenged them to seek a new area where they could run their own club, with our full backing and support (both physically with the sports equipment and spiritually with our continued mentoring programme towards them), so it was with great joy that i dropped off four of the mentors to an open piece of ground, equipped with their bible cards, footballs, training bibs and cones.

the sight of over 20 children joining the guys for the training session, which they led from start to finish, warm up, drills, lifeskill and bible story, was amazing and i must thank them for their dedication to see the very programme which has bought them to this point in their life being shared by them to the younger children in the community.

i am very proud of them and this is a real testimony to all the hard work we have put into the clubs and the lives of these young people, well done boys!

August News

August has been a month of contrast weather-wise. Although we've had days of 29 degree sunshine, we've also experienced 0 degree days that have brought wind, rain and storms and caused a lot of discomfort and damp to our friends living in the community of Grabouw. The rivers are overflowing and although we have to be thankful for the rain for the farmers here we sometimes feel frustrated that we can't help to relieve the problems that it causes for the majority other than delivering a small drop of soup once a week - which often just doesn't seem enough....It's then that we have to remind ourselves of the starfish story!

Children’s Unit
We have to remember that we are able to make a difference to a few and this children who we care for in the unit here have somewhere safe and comfortable to be. Last week we were about to celebrate our smallest child's first birthday and have taken great delight in seeing him physically progress in the short time he has been with us.

Another one of the boys has recently turned 3 so is now able to start at the local preschool. His first day was a success, although came with the usual dramas of being left in a new environment! -Thankfully one of the older girls who we are looking after attends the same school so at least there was one familiar face!

Sports

We are very excited to welcome Shana Cox to our team. She has come to serve as an intern for 6 months and has just recently completed studies at Loughborough University (one of the top sporting institutes in UK). She is a fantastic addition to our team and, although she only arrived last week, has already been working with Josh helping to refine some of our policy documentation around the Sports Outreach Programme. Unfortunately she arrived in a week of very wet weather and, although she was itching to get out to do sports, has been unable to until this week.

Earlier in the month you may have read that we took the mentors along to a tournament held in Worcester (a town about an hour north of Grabouw). This was a wonderful experience for the whole team and Shepherd received the accolade of Player of the Tournament! - A very proud day for us all. Read a full match report here.

Other News:
Landscaping:
We are continuing to landscape the land in and around the project buildings and it is great to be able to start to tame some of the wilder bits. We've had to do a lot of water diverting at short notice because of the heavy rains to stop the water submerging pathways. We now have some new rivers (or perhaps canals!) as well as small lakes!

Within the landscaping we have been defining the entrance to Village of Hope and, thanks to a generous donation from local funder we are in the process of installing proper (lump-free) driveways and parking areas, which is beginning to look very proper! We have also installed a nice new fence around the Childrens' Unit play area - we are just waiting for a dry day to finish of the painting of it.

Supporting Other Community Projects:
We are trying our best to use our skills and experience to assist community projects that need help getting to the next level – so that they can apply to register their centres and potentially receive government funding etc. We’ve been assisting with doing surveys and research to uncover the need in the community and filter that into existing projects like crèches. We have also been able to help match funders with needy community projects, like Masiphumelele crèche who are now the proud owners of a new converted container extension with bathrooms and office space! It is such an honour to be able to assist in this kind of community development and make the most of all the time consuming lessons we have learnt in our work here so far.

Volunteers:
We have already mentioned Shana's arrival but we also had a quick visit from past volunteers Debbie and Jeff Trigg and Tony and Hazel Allen (who this time also brought one of their daughters, Rosie, along for the ride). They were here for 2 weeks and got really stuck in especially helping with all the painting that needed to be done -which can be a niggly job but a HUGE help.


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 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!

first day at pre-school

one of the most amazing things we can do to support the little ones who we have been given care over is to ensure that we don't miss those most important dates in their lives, and obviously one's first day at school, be that real big school or pre-school, is key date in anyone's life. so today we had the pleasure of taking our little three year old boy to his first day at pre-school, well i say we as it was actually emma who got up early to ensure that this boy fitted in well and was made a bit of a fuss over.

as you can imagine the lives of the children to stay with us are so complex so what is already a very trying and emotional time was made all the harder as there were many hurdles to overcome this morning, firstly his estranged mother who lives near the school, and who we have had very little interaction with since he has been with us, was calling to him as he arrived, an over friendly dog was waiting to greet him at the school gate, the little boy is very scared of dogs so this wasn't such a warm welcome and he started to cry when emma finally had to say goodbye!

that said our five year old girl who attends the same pre-school made him feel really welcome and by the end of the morning he was talking excitedly as emma picked them up from his first morning at school.

(sorry no pictures but emma said that there was a little too much going on to get her camera out to capture the moment, i don't know what she means!)

winning in many ways...!

the team, and supporters before the big games

the 9th of august is a special day in south africa when we think about the wonderful women of the country, it's a public holiday and many things are done to celebrate women, however for myself, josh, seb and our sports mentors there was no lay in as we were up by 6am collecting the mentors from their homes in the formal and informal settlements before we made the hour long journey to worcester where we were taking part in a soccer tournament organised by solid rock.

kick off!

we arrived ready for registration at 8am after a fantastic drive through the snowing mountains and by 9.30 the event was well underway with teams from the whole of the boland area competing in various age groups from under 9's right the way through to under 19's. we had entered a team made up of our under 17 mentors with a few supporters joining us for the ride!....unfortunately we were placed into the under 19 competition but this didn't deter our team of five players with two subs, who were wearing some new football boots donated by tony allen, who relished the challenge of competing against the older boys (men)!

the ground with snowy mountains in the background

during our first two games we looked very nervous and although we led both games we ended up drawing those 2-2 which was a little disappointing, however it was a round robin tournament which meant we were going to play another six games against the other teams.

over the next six games we went from strength to strength, coming back from 2-3 down to win 4-3 and then thumping the next three teams 5-1, 6-1, 7-2, we finished off the tournament against the two strongest (other than us) teams and won those 3-0 and 2-0 respectively. it was a truly wonderful display with the team playing so well together with sterling performances from the goal keeper through our back line up to our amazing goal scorers.

our star player of the tournament 

there was a very strange scoring system which in principle worked well, where teams we given beans instead of points, ten beans for a win,  five for a draw and one for turning up (losing!), however there were other ways to 'win/collect' beans, such as collecting litter, sitting in straight lines for lunch etc, as i say the principle of the system was great, however the application left a little to be desired and we some how missed out on winning the whole competition via this system.

that said our boys were complimented on their sporting behavior and although i am biased we were the team of the tournament in all aspects of the day and i can only praise the way the boys took the news that they hadn't won the prized kit which we were playing for.

there was a silver lining to the day as we did come away with one highlight which was the fact that our youngest player was voted senior player of the tournament, not bad for a 16 year old pitting his skills against 20 year olds, however his skill levels were outstanding and it wasn't a surprise that he won the overall prize!

a great day was had by all, the day was well organised and although we arrived back in grabouw over 12 hours later, most of the boys slept all the way home, it was great spending time with them and seeing the skills, both football skills and the lifeskills that we encourage each and every day during our outreaches coming to the fore.....a big thank you josh for joining me in the driving, you were really a star!

small steps make such a difference 2......

first steps with the walking frame, mind the toys boxes!

as we highlighted on our previous post we are constantly seeing that small steps really do make such a difference and come in so many different forms as we serve our community here in grabouw.

there was much anticipation for the arrival of tony, hazel and rosie allen from winslow, not only were we looking forward to catching up with them again and seeing the impact that they would have as they joined us for a couple of weeks volunteering at the village of hope, but we knew that they were bring over a children's walking frame for one of our children who is suffering from the affects of the HIV virus.

the walking frame was donated by one of our other volunteers, josh holtrum, mother who wanted to make a difference to this dear little girls life and yesterday there was so much joy on the faces of the house mom's, the volunteers and most importantly the face of the little girl as she took her first meaningful steps behind the frame which provided some much needed support as she learns to walk.

it's amazing to see the transformation of this little life, when she arrived with us late last year there was little interaction, her eyes were vacant and she could hardly sit up on her own, but since she has been with us and had the much needed stimulation that was lacking at home she is not only taking her first steps but she is forming sounds and providing us with wonderful smiles of delight as she discovers her new world.

her mother came to visit a couple of weeks ago and it was wonderful to see the joy in her face as she saw the development that had taken place in her daughter and we are confident that with further support from our social worker/s some sort of reunification can be made to place her home soon.