February News

These last two months have been packed with excitement and different things going on!

Children’s Unit
In December we said goodbye to four of our little ones, which was very bittersweet, as we know it is best for them to be with their families or in a more permanent placement but as we have watched them grow and develop everyday it is easy to become attached! However God has entrusted these little ones in our care for a period of time and when that time ends we have to let go and continue to trust God that he will care for them.

Two of our little ones moved so the adoption process could be started. For our three-year-old boy, whose mother died in November, he was placed with his maternal aunt and uncle who already cared for his 13-year-old brother. They had also visited regularly and started to build a relationship with him which was a positive! He is now living with them under a foster care order and they have said they would like to adopt him. We see him regularly at the local pre-school and he seems very settled! Unfortunately the story for our two year old boy was not as successful. His mum had worked really hard undertaking everything required of her to enable her son to come back but due to her working on a farm the little boy was going to be discharged to his grandmother who would care for him whilst she was at work. All the necessary assessments were undertaken, he went home for Christmas but unfortunately, just after Christmas, his grandmother felt that she could not cope with him and her own children particularly around the paraffin stove. Therefore he ended up coming back to the Village of Hope just after Christmas. Although Plan A has not worked it was good that he was able to return to us so we can continue to work with the family and look at permanency for this little one.

As well as all the discharges we had a new admission, a little six-week-old baby whose mother had died shortly after giving birth and needed a place to stay until a suitable home placement can be made. It has been lovely taking care of such a small baby again.

Amongst all these goings on we also managed to have a Christmas party for all our current and past children with their families. The place was filled with laughter and singing and it was great to see so many children in the unit. It really gave us a taste of what it may look like if we fill all our beds!

First steps into school!

Despite the Christmas period being over, things have not slowed down and it has been busy, busy as usual! Just after Christmas our new baby boy was taken to hospital as he was unwell and stayed for a further 5 days. He was given intravenous  antibiotics and came back to us healthy but this meant daily runs to Caledon hospital and extra staff to stay with him day and night. January has also seen the start of the new school term and our three-year-old little girl with cerebral palsy had her first day! It was pretty incredible seeing her excited and keen to start school, practically running with her walking frame through the gates. Despite being behind in her speech and having a physical disability she is attending a mainstream school.  This little girl is filled with determination and courage, she is strong and focused and manages to keep with the other children and I think we can all learn something from her attitude! We are so proud of how far she has come! Since starting school her speech has improved and her ability to problem solve is coming on leaps and bounds! God is doing amazing work in this precious girl both emotionally and physically!

Unfortunately despite being registered as a partial care facility since September we are still struggling with getting children placed in temporary safe care at VOH. This is extremely frustrating as it appears to have been an on-going battle for a number of years now! It is frustrating when we have 6 beds available. We know how much need there is for these beds and that children at risk may remain in bad situations due to the social workers having no where else to place the children. We have met with the local social service agencies to try and join together in presenting a united front to the magistrate. However this has further highlighted the issue that we need to be registered as a child and youth care centre.


Sports

With schools here in Grabouw breaking up for summer in early December, and most of our children leaving the area to go back to the Eastern Cape for the holidays, sports clubs were strangely quiet over the December period. Though it would have been very easy for our mentors to decide they didn’t want to continue sports over this time, as always they have shown an incredible level of dedication to the programme. As a result, we continued going to sports clubs each week, taking a few weeks off from our normal set-up and instead just playing matches and hanging out with the kids. In a lot of ways, though we missed the busy routine of our normal clubs, actually the ‘quiet’ was rewarding too!

Some of our wonderful sports mentors receiving school
equipment

We are constantly aware of how much our mentors do for us and our sports programme, even though many of them have extremely complicated home lives. Though many of us would take being able to buy things like uniform and stationery for the start of the new school term for granted, actually for our mentors and so many others in the community, it all costs money that they simply don’t have. Thanks to the generosity of some recent volunteers here at Village of Hope, each of our mentors was given a bag with all the essentials for their start back to school. It was humbling to see how, for us, ‘little’ things like a pad of paper and some pencils brought such joy. We were also able to help some of our mentors out with buying them the school uniform that they so desperately need.

As a Christmas present and another ‘thank you!’ for all that they do, we took all the mentors on a trip to watch Bafana Bafana take on Nigeria in Cape Town in the recent African Nations Championships. Even though South Africa lost 3-1 on the night, with two red cards, two penalties, and a lot of

action, it was a great evening and a treat for our guys and girls to see their heroes in action on the big stage.

With schools being back in session, numbers at our clubs are slowly starting to pick up with more children finding out about the programme and old faces returning. We are also glad to welcome back Jasper, a returning HAN student who will be helping to co-ordinate the sports program over the coming months, including writing a new sports programme as we come to the end of our current 16 weeks of content.  


Rainbow Smiles

Our Rainbow Smiles group is continuing well. We had a great end to the year with a trip to the beach which the children loved! We have recently found out that some of the children who attend Rainbow Smiles do not know that they are HIV positive. This is a difficult scenario when they are attending the club expressly because of their positive status! As a result it has highlighted an area we need to resolve and we are currently undertaking more work with the families to help us identify what their needs are and how we can best support. One of the young girls came to us the other day and told us her mother could not afford to buy the glasses she desperately needs. Without something as simple as reading glasses her education and future could be affected. From visiting the family to see if we could support them, we were able to identify that the family were not receiving any child care grants and needed support in applying for these to help financially provide for the family. It is sometimes a frustration for us seeing so much need and not being able to help everyone in the community but we have to keep remembering that by helping those we have a relationship with it can make a massive difference in their lives.

Other News:
Cycling SAVE THE DATE:
Our annual cycle in the UK is being planned for Saturday 14th June. Suitable for all ages and based around Aylesbury. Keep your eyes peeled on our facebook page for more details.

Dog Days Are Over:
Those of you who have visited us in the past will have met our lovely lab, Wag n bietjie. We inherited him when we acquired Village of Hope. Sadly he passed away this week. The end of an era!

Volunteers:
We are very pleased to have welcomed Jasper back to the fold. Jasper was on placement with us from the HAN university a couple of years ago and helped out with the sports. He has returned to serve for a further three months which is fantastic especially when we are going to have to say goodbye to the lovely Shana Cox who has served us so selflessly for the last 6 months as our sports intern. We are going to miss you Shana!

Gundi, the mother of one of the Stuttgart students who helped to build some of the new buildings on Village of Hope, has also arrived to serve for a couple of months. She is great with little kids and is assisting our little three-year-old girl in adjusting to preschool. We are so impressed with Gundi who is brave enough to come here with English as her second language!


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!