new wholehearted video shoot

set up day 1 in waterworks

as part of our fundraising drive for the work that thembalitsha is doing in grabouw, via thembacare and village of hope, and the wider foundation with the other 5 projects in the western cape, we are once again partnering with the amazing south african band from somerset west called 'wholehearted', these guys filmed a music video with us last year (see youtube link here) and they have been visiting us and the communities that we work in to shoot a new video for a song that will be used to tell the story of the day to day lives of thousands of people in our town and other such towns like grabouw throughout south africa.

red ballons on some homes used to tell part of the story

yesterday afternoon and all day today we have been filming in the waterworks informal settlement, using everyday people to tell their everyday stories, we also shot part of the film with the soccer club that we run in the iraq informal settlement and also had help from the careworkers and house moms at thembacare and the village of hope.

soccer outreach with the kids in iraq

we were blessed to have the support of the whole community where we were filming and they were very keen in appearing in a film that will be used to support the work that we are doing to bring healthcare and education to literally hundreds of people like them, be they family, friends or neighbours.

as soon as the dvd is released we will be posting it on youtube for you to view but as you can see we have posted a few photos showing the filming and the team who are sold out to make a difference in the very lives of the people who appear in the dvd.

jesmond team put video on youtube

this afternoon andy greenshields place a video montage that he had put together of the trip he made with the rest of the team from jesmond/newcastle to the village of hope earlier this year. if you wanna have a look at what mission teams get up to when they come to serve the community via our thembalitsha projects here in grabouw then please follow this link to andy's youtube post.

thanks andy and its great to have a record of what you did for us and our community.

sport against crime

a rare corner for grabouw, the boys in blue!

as part of our community outreach i (tim) sit on the grabouw community police forum and on saturday we (the village of hope sports outreach team, our local mentors and our two dutch students from the HAN university) along with the local grabouw police station took a team of fifteen under 14 boys to play in a soccer tourament in cape town. around 16 police stations took part in this event from all over the cape metro and overberg region, the event was all part of the poilce campaign 'sport against crime' and was sponsored by shoprite and coke.

the boys looking a little
dejected after their defeat.

the tournament took place at the santos football club in lansdowne and the well manicured pitches were a little different to those that we are used to practice on in grabouw, in fact it was the first time some of the boys had put a real pair of boots on.

our team of 15 boys were chosen from the 5 different areas that we work in each afternoon, hillside, site view, waterworks, iraq and remhoogte farm in elgin, it was great to see the boys from the different areas come together to play as a team and practice some of the soccer and life skills that we have been working on within our weekly programme. unfortunately we didn't win the tournament but we did have a good time and we hope that next year the other teams will play by the under 14 rule which should enable us to win a few games!

as a prize from us each of the boys was able to keep the chelsea shirts that were donated to us by our good friend matt walker (no relation) which they were very pleased with...thanks matt.

vineyard workers!

contrary to popular belief our intrepid assistant pastors from the vale of aylesbury vineyard (not the wine type!), aka mark and viv knight, aren't just sitting around and or sightseeing in our wonderful spring weather, no they have been very busy building a much needed sand pit for our children to enjoy this summer. we might post some further photos of the finished item but here is mark giving it the final coat (in his coat as today the weather broke!)....thanks guys, come back soon.

a new volunteer arrives

simon helping with our tea time!

we are so pleased to welcome our new volunteer, simon, onto the village of hope team, he will be with us for a couple of months and come over to us via his good friend and one of our ex-volunteers, harry who was with us in 2010 and did a crazy bike ride fundraiser for us earlier this year.

simon has hit the floor running and was found this evening helping out in our children's unit at tea time, we hope that he continues to bond well with the children and look forward to him getting involved with our sports outreach in the community.

staff party

the village of hope team, less me, looking fine and dandy!

last friday we held our 2011 staff party at the wonderful erinvale golf estate in somerset west, each of the 7 thembalitsha projects were present, in total around 130 people including our 10 wonderful house moms, johan our maintenance coordinator, mel kidd, me and maz.

the day started with a delicious hot and cold brunch, followed by update reports given by each of the projects, it was great to hear from each of the projects, it gave us a real feel of family and highlighted the amazing work that thembalitsha are doing to help the most needy people and children in the western cape.

we really wanted the staff to feel special and for them to see a lighter side of the management, therefore after the reports we were entertained by some of the project managers who performed a little ditty, me and maz tried our best to ruin ABBA's 'i have a dream'...maz looked wonderful in her 70's gear complete with blonde wig and tight hot pants....you don't wanna know what i was wearing and thankfully there will never be any pictures published of that on this blog anyways!

after the entertainment we had a short awards ceremony, some awards were very serious such as a long service award and johan received ours for 'all the hard work he puts in to save us money with his ingenious ways of mend and fix', our house mom franjoleen received an award as 'most competitive mom at the children's parties'....yes some where a little less serious!

it was great that all of our staff could come together and celebrate all the wonderful things that each of the projects have achieved over the last year, it is a privilege to be part of this foundation and to work with some of the most inspiring people on this earth.

sports saturday on a monday!?

waiting for their awards

sorry for the lack of posts/updates from the village of hope. maz' sister viv and our brother in law mark from the vale of aylesbury vineyard (church, not wine estate) have joined us for a 3 week trip to see what we get up to and at the back end of last week we managed to get away for a few days, enjoying some time of rest and relaxation.....but we are back now and the updates should come through thick and fast again.

our 'first day back' was a busy one, not only catching up on emails and all those things we missed last week but running a sports day for the 6 clubs that we run each and every term time afternoon.

i must say a huge thanks to our two new dutch students, stephan and wieke, who along with emily and our local mentors, did a great job of planning and prepping the day, and not to take anything away from any of our previous students they have left an amazing legacy of documentation both physical and electronic which will make our lives a lot easier in the future.

hillside boys with their winning football shirts

the day began with the collection of the children from 5 pick up points in the formal and informal settlements around grabouw, our farm team was transported by their own transport. whilst we picked up the kids, the set up team got busy 'setting up' the pitches and organising the kits that each of the teams would wear. the sports outreach team, mentioned above, were joined by kat, mark, jen and a handful of other dutch students who would be the 'team managers'. we even had a visit from the children we look after at the village of hope, which was really special.

after the 130 children had arrived, prayers were said, kits handed out and the games began, we held a huge netball tournaments for the girls, with 7 teams taking part, and two groups of boys football, an under 14 and an over 14 tournament. made up of a total of 11 teams.

the joy, noise and sportsmanship that surrounded the elgin county club during the morning was amazing, all the children behaved really well, they played hard but fair and the standard of skill that was shown was something to behold, we are very proud of them that they are learning the sports, life and lifestyle skills that we speak to them about each and every week.

we were served a hot dog lunch, with rolls sponsored by the local spar and Vienna's from the roundtable, and after a short presentation/game from some of the other dutch (HAN) students about the need to collect rubbish and recycle the winners of the sports tournaments were announce.

for the record, the rooidakke girls team won the netball from a hard fought hillside team in second place in the league, and for the first time a team from hillside won the under 14 league, they were blessed with an A and B side, and iraq won the over 14 league with our new team from site-view coming a strong second.

the winning teams were presented with a soccer shirt (we wont mention their name on this blog but they come from west london and aren't my favorites (me being a QPR fan!).....but the kids really appreciated the thought and we hope that we will be able to repeat this again very soon.