March Newsletter

The long summer holidays are now over, which has bought some much needed relief to our house moms, who were somewhat overwhelmed with the needs of 8 children aged 9 months till 10 years, all with some social or medical issues 24/7. I am sure you would empathise with them!

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• Children’s Unit
• Sports Outreach & Community Work
• Other News & Volunteers
• Events
• How You Can Help
• Volunteering

Children’s Unit
A new school year is always exciting and it was wonderful to see one of our little girls, who also suffers from alcohol fetal syndrome, skipping and jumping through the school gate her ruck sack on her back on her first day. Thankfully the novelty hasn't warn off yet as its important to us that our children attend the local schools. This term our eldest boy was also able to attend the opening of his new school, which is situated at the end of our gravel road, this school caters for his special needs and we think he is enjoying it!

During the month we were able to place our youngest child into some more permanent foster care at another project in Gordons Bay. The whole team at the village were very sorry to see him leave (see pic) but this is the aim of the project and he is now the 17th child that we have had through our unit in just less than 2 years.

The moms continue to do an amazing job, treating each child as their own, offering them a loving shoulder to cry on, or snuggle into, but discipline is always hard when you have 10 to 15 different ways, however we are sure that our children know that they are blessed and much loved by everyone here at the Village of Hope.


Sports Outreach & Community Work
With the new term we have started back each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at our sports based life skills clubs in the communities. The take up has been somewhat mixed, Arron has had 6 boys turn up one week and then over 40 the next, with similar experiences at each of our clubs. However with the new Dutch students arriving, and they once again seem really nice and enthusiastic, we are hoping for a little more continuity.

That said, the lives of the children we work with are very hard. Most have to wash their own clothes or cook tea (if there is any) for the family before they can come and play. Life is so much different here in Africa for those living in the townships and informal settlements and we have to be a little more flexible when issuing both rewards and punishments for late arrivals!

We have changed our approach to our Bible times, we used to focus on one scripture that fitted best with the life skill and sports skill, however even our helpers couldn't always remember what verse we were teaching or what way we could apply it to our lives. We have now decided to focus on a well-known bible story or character which gives us wider scope to engage with the children. Imagine getting 50 kids to march round with a vuvuzela whilst talking about Joshua and the walls of Jericho...quite a sight I can tell you!


Other News - House Move & House Build:
Johan has taken 4 weeks off to 'move house'! Yes Johan and Joyce, along with their newly adopted little girl, have moved from their one bed unit at the Village of Hope into their very own two bed home in Grabouw. Their leaving this has created some additional space for us to move into - the possibilities are endless! A pool or table tennis room are high on Arron’s list, however Maz has the final decision and we think that it might be best used as office, meeting and reception space. Sorry Arron.

The wonderful prep team of Leslie, Ulrika and Gerhard have arrived from Stuttgart university ahead of the 20 or so further students who will be joining us at the end of February to build us a lovely new accommodation block on the land at the Village of Hope! Their team is called Ukuqala- which is Zulu for ‘beginnings’- and the building is strongly influenced by traditional African building techniques. They are carrying out the project as part of their university course but blessing us as a result as we will be getting a brand new accommodation block for free! Please follow the blog for the development of that site. I am sure it will be interesting to see the building taking shape. At the moment they (along with Arron's willing help) have levelled the site, and secured the wooden poles that will provide the support for the cob (hay and mud mixture) walls.


Volunteers
As we have already said Leslie and the Stuttgart, Ukuquala, team have arrived in dribs and drabs. By the beginning of March there will be 23 of them in total. Don't worry we aren't hosting all of them at the volunteer accommodation - they are going to be moving off to a lovely site with three homes overlooking a lake in the Elgin valley. Emily's 18 year old sister, Sophie, has arrived for a 3 month stint at the project during her gap year. We hope that she will enjoy her stay.

Issac house started his first day at school as well. I think Rob and Emily are enjoying having some more time to put in a full mornings work now that both he and Rosie are at school every day.

Mel Kidd will no doubt have filled everyone in on the U2 concert that we (me, Maz, Arry and Mel) attended at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town on the 18th Feb, which was a blast. If you weren't aware Bono and the boys played two gigs in South Africa during their 360 tour and I think that will be one of the highlights of Mel's year.

We have also been blessed by 3 visits from people linking with us via the Stuff Your Rucksack site. These people found our project on their website and bought over donations in their rucksacks to give to us when they visited the project. As a result the children now have some fantastic new dressing up costumes and stationary items.

Events
We are planning our annual Cycle for September and we still have places available for a the 10k London Run in July. Please get in touch if you would like more details. We are also looking at doing a charity ball for World AIDS Day this December.

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!