October News

Feeding the horses at Paul Cluver Wines

The past couple of months have not been lacking in drama here in Grabouw. This was particularly highlighted with the service protests in the community that descended into days of violence. The protests left us without any of our usual staff of House Moms as they were not able to get into work safely and the school-age children remained home because the schools had to close.

Although these few days were challenging, we received wonderful ‘back-up’ from the rest of our Thembalitsha family and were left with a reminder of what wonderful ladies we have in our House Mom team – being Mom to 13 kids is a tough job!

As well as the days off because of the protests it has also been school holidays which gave us an opportunity to arrange some outings for our children. Paul Cluver Wines kindly allowed us to come and visit the Zebras that live on their land. Unfortunately we did not see the Zebras up close but they allowed the children to feed, ride and stroke the horses which the children loved! We also took our older children on a 2.5K bike ride in the mountains. The children who taught themselves to ride their bikes loved the adventure! We were extremely proud of their efforts and they had a great time.

We are making slow progress on some of the children’s cases but slow progress is better than none! Some of the kids have been able to have weekend visits back home which is a great step towards reunification and it has been wonderful to work alongside the families and social workers to make this happen. We hope that some of our children will be reunified with their families before Christmas.

The mentors with a captivated audience of eager listeners

Sports
Sports is going well. Although we have missed Josh Houltram’s assistance, the Sports Mentors have been doing an amazing job and even ran each club on their own whilst Tim was away. Our relationships within each of the nine groups are growing each week and we can see that the life skills training is really having some positive impact on the behaviour of the children.

Bonny is doing some great work with the younger children and it's perhaps time to seek some longer term help to ensure that he isn't overwhelmed by the hundreds of children that attend his clubs which are aimed at children aged three to seven years.

The winter weather has challenged us to provide sports every afternoon. The children who attend our clubs often only have one set of clothes and they are for school, especially shoes. If they get wet then there is nowhere for them to dry them out before going to school the next day. The other challenge was around the strike action that took place where we were unable to safely go out into the community. It was so disappointing to hear that some of the children were either caught in the crossfire or used almost as 'human shields' between the rioters and the police who were firing rubber bullets!

Rainbow Smiles –HIV support group for adolescents
The Rainbow Smiles group was another casualty of the protests and we had to cancel our weekly meeting that week for safety reasons. It was sad to hear that some of the children had been involved with throwing stones in the protests but it was a good opportunity to discuss the issues behind the protests and to talk about different ways to respond. We were impressed by the children's honesty and openness.

There is a boy in the group whom we’ve appointed to join us in leading. He spends one day a week with us helping with planning. Last month we were able to send him on a leadership course which he thoroughly enjoyed and did us proud with the way he listened, behaved and contributed during the course. It also enabled us to understand that he responds well to learning with adults. As he is almost eighteen we have been able to look at an adult learning class for him to finish his education. This is great news as we have been trying to get him into a school for over a year now. He will undertake assessments to ascertain his level and to ensure he is started in the right class and is supported in the correct way.

Emma has also attended a course on running an adolescent support group which provided us with a great teaching resource and enabled us to connect with other professionals as well as learn new skills and gain more knowledge to assist us running this club.

Other News:
Volunteers:
This month has seen the arrival of three lads from Austrailia. Seb, Matt and Chris who are stopping off on their round-the-world trip to do some volunteering with us. We are also hosting the mission team from Trinity Church in Dallas. Trinity send a team to volunteer every year and it’s great to see some familiar faces as well as new ones.

Finally we are looking forward to welcoming a volunteer from France. Greg is going to be arriving to help with running the sports outreach and we are looking forward to the extra help.

Hot Wheels Car Club:
This club from Cape Town collected donations of food and clothes to Grabouw last weekend.

Emerging Leaders:
Trevor and Jane Waldock are basing themselves at Village of Hope as they explore how and where to deliver their grass roots training programme, Emerging Leaders, in South Africa. Having already established this successful programme in many other developing countries around the world, South Africa is next on their list and last week citizens of Grabouw were able to benefit from this training. The training was particularly pertinent in light of the recent protests and encourages everyone to be a leader and to take ownership of their community. It’s been a privilege to learn from their wisdom and to assist them in organising the workshop.