Hellos and Goodbyes (February 2015)

Children’s Unit 

Back to school!

Over the Christmas period, the children went on bike rides, swimming, to the beach, played games, made crafts, and lots of exciting stuff. We enjoyed a big Christmas day altogether which the children loved! They where given some presents, and it was fun watching their excitement opening them and being so grateful for all the things they got. When school started back, two of our dear ones started big school – they looked so grown up in their uniforms!

Also during the holiday period, we discharged five of our children and had three new arrivals who came to stay with us for a short time. We said goodbye to three brothers who went back to their grandmother who was now in a place where they felt she could look after all three children. We also said goodbye to a baby boy who came to us at two months old after nearly dying in the hospital. His mother died shortly after giving birth, but his father remained very involved during the year he was with us. This tiny baby who came to us so small left fat and healthy to live with his grandmother in the Eastern Cape. The last discharge was a little girl who had been with us for 14 months. Her mother sadly died whilst the little girl was with us. Her grandmother came from the Eastern Cape to spend a week with us getting to know her grandchild and learning to administrate her medication. She has now taken the little girl to live with her in the Eastern Cape.

We were also able to provide care for a new arrival: a young boy who had become very ill due to not taking his meds. He had developed TB and needed somewhere to build his strength so he stayed with us for three weeks. His mother was also unwell and each time she was in hospital the people caring for him did not give him the meds. Due to this referral from the clinic, we were able to get social workers involved who are able to monitor the situation, and the mother knows now that if she has to go to hospital she can call the social workers who will help support her.

Rainbow Smiles

Farewell pool party for Tim and Maz

We kicked off the holiday period by having a great Christmas party with a braai and a water slide! The children particularly loved racing down the slippy slide. Following the party, we began a very long break and have only just started back at the tail end of January when we began the new year by having a pool party to say goodbye to Tim and Maz.

We have added two more children to the club, which brings the total to 17 children – an amazing number for us. Unfortunately, we have had to say goodbye to our trusted volunteer Johan, but we have gained Greg from France who is helping at the club. Starting this week, we look forward to two students from Holland joining our team! Due to the need for more helpers, we have moved the meeting time to Wednesdays, which we’re hoping works out with the earlier school time.

Lastly, one of our children who has become young leader has been able to re-start his schooling at community college after being out of school for over two years. This is a massive achievement for him, and we are incredibly proud of him. He is 17 years old and left school after only completing Grade 6 (primary school level). If he works hard and continues with his adult education, he will be able to matriculate by the time he is 20 years old.

Sports

A day at the beach with our sports kids

Village of Hope sports leaders Greg and Emma combined forces with our community sports mentors to take 80 kids to the beach at the end of December to celebrate the end of 2014 and the summer holiday. Two busloads of kids got a day of fun in the sun and swimming in before school started back! Then in January, Village of Hope collaborated with local Strand-based charity Solid Rock to do a full week of 9am-5pm athletic activities and biblical life coaching at Groenberg School in Grabouw. More than 175 kids attended per day - an amazing turn out, and a lot of fun for the kids and our staff alike. Now well into February, we are excited to return to our scheduled daily sports programme in different pockets of the Grabouw community. Word is spreading amongst the kids, and we expect to be operating with full volume by next week!

June News

The winter has certainly arrived here bringing wind, rain and even some snow on the mountains. It’s very cold and makes conditions for the poor in our community even more challenging.

Scubba diving anyone?

Children’s Unit

All the children are progressing very well and seem jolly and happy. We have an occupational therapist who comes once a month and she is very pleased with all children which proves that our wonderful House Moms are doing a grand job!

One little one in particular is a boy who’s been with us for a year. When he came to us he was just a year old and was unable to sit unsupported. Now he is meeting all his developmental mile stones which is fantastic news. The other great news we have recently been able to discharge him home. His parents have visited him constantly since his placement here and have worked well with the social workers and us. He went for a weekend visit two weeks ago and he was positively glowing when we collected him. We are always sad to say goodbye but we are also happy to know that we’ve done our best for him.

We are also further a long with the case of our six year old girl. We’ve have found a foster family for her and it now depends on the upcoming court case to see if the order will be granted so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Sports

With the arrival of winter in South Africa this month, our sports outreach programme has suffered due to the severe weather. We’ve major storms but, when the weather has permitted, we have continued running our clubs with energy and enthusiasm.

Our ninth and most recent club continues to grow under the leadership of Aphiwe, 18, and he now mentors to over 30 children each week.

The World Cup has given us an opportunity to put on something special for the children and teenagers of Grabouw, resulting in a tournament to be held on 4th July at one of the local schools. This hundred-person event will run in tandem with the actual World Cup, allowing the children to play while keeping track of the scores in Brazil.  


Rainbow Smiles –HIV support group for adolescents

We now have 15 children at our Rainbow Smiles Club which is amazing. We seem to have more younger children being referred which is giving opportunities to our older children to support and help the younger ones. One of the new children is a child who used to stay at Village of Hope and now lives with his grandparents. It is great to see how we can continue to support our children after they are discharged and as they grow up.

This group also reminds us of the constant challenges these children face. In the last week we’ve been alerted to one girl who is purposefully defaulting on her medication – a serious issue. We are grateful that her parents wanted to confide in us and make us aware of the issue so that that we might be able to help get the situation resolved quickly preventing too much damage to her health, but also to ensuring that we support this girl with the love and care that she needs.

Other News:
The Themablitsha Big Buck$ Bike Ride
What an amazing success with a fantastic turnout! The final figures aren’t in yet but it looks like the team smashed their £5000 target and everyone enjoyed the day getting #Active4Hope! Big thanks go to the team of volunteers who worked so hard to get this event off the ground, to all the cyclists who’s blood, sweat and tears made the event as well as to all those who sponsored the athletes!!!


Volunteers:
We’ve had an unusual few weeks without any short-term volunteers but as of yesterday we’ve been able to welcome Polly from the UK who is spending 2 months of her gap year volunteering for us and next week we have Shae and Aubrei from USA coming to volunteer and assist in our school holiday sports programme so it will feel a little bit more normal again!


Gardening:
Big thanks to the team from Every Nation Somerset West who came and slaved hard on their weekend to help improve a garden at one of our long term volunteer houses. They worked like trojans and have really made the space much nicer for Rob and Emily (who are staying in the house at the moment) and for all the volunteers who will stay there after them!


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!

thanks for the support...

the work we do here at the village of hope is made all the easier by some amazing relationships we have with friends, families, church groups, schools and businesses around the world and we thank God for all the support we get from them. it has taken time to build up those relationships and keeping our blog, facebook and other social media sites up to date with current projects is key to sharing our 'thankyous' with those people.

during the six years we have been here in grabouw we have also built up some very strong relationships within our own community, those can be seen during our big events like the hope@paulcluver where we hosted our season of concerts during the summer but most of the help and support goes unnoticed so we would like to send a huge thank you to the following two businesses who were able to provide some amazing but unseen support last week.

the first are the guys at hyundai somerset west, these wonderful people managed to fix our H1(mircobus) with a new clutch in super fast time last week so we were only missing the bus for the daily school run for a couple of days.

the second is our local peregrine farmstall, these guys have an amazing restaurant and farm shop and have been supplying soup for a weekly 'soup run' over a number of years however last saturday their kitchen burnt down but even with all that going on they were able to provide soup for us as normal on friday which was an amazing blessing to the creches we support.....thanks guys!

as we said there are so many other's who help us out in so many ways, they know who they are and we thank them too however we hope that they aren't offended by us picking up on these two companies who really helped us last week!

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!

a helping hand (near and far)

well, we have been extremely busy over the past weeks so apologies for the intermittent posts! we are still trying to get the building works finished which seem to be taking forever!

wood for our mentors before the rains came

and then the rains came

from our previous post you will have read that winter is starting to set in and with it comes stormy weather and rain. even a dusting of snow on the mountains! although the snow looks pretty, these harsher weather conditions make life in the township even more challenging than usual.

helping with a sports mentors new roof

as always we do our best to go the extra mile at this time of year, whether it’s organising extra soup to be provided to some local creches or donating scrap wood from our recent building projects that can be used by our faithful sports mentors as fire fuel. with such overwhelming need in this community it’s very easy to get distracted from our ‘day job’ (?) and consider setting up a soup kitchen or start another equally worthy project…but we have to remain focused on what we are already doing and build on that, trusting that God will fill in where we cannot. we cannot always do more… 

however, if you feel like you DO have room in your busy schedule to do more then we’ve made it really easy for you to help to restore hope through Thembalitsha wherever you are! 

the clever bods (yes, we have a few believe it or not!) in our marketing team have come up with a wonderful plan... it’s called #Active4Hope and it is very easy to do!

1.      get active:

run, cycle, walk, row, jump, skip, craft, sew, dance, make music…..whatever you love to do you can create awareness for our cause and be #Active4Hope.

2.      wear:

they’ve got a very smart t-shirt to go with this (thanks to mel who designed this for us) which you can download and print onto your preferred white t-shirt. the idea that you wear this shirt whenever you are active and become a walking (or running, crafting, rowing etc) billboard for us! (download it here)

3.      join or enter:

lisa modeling the new active4hope tee shirt

to take this concept further you can even decide to enter an event and fundraise for us too or create a social or training club where each member of the group wears the shirt for meetings/training sessions.

4.      tweet:

we just ask one favour, that you tweet us (@thembalitsha using hashtag #Active4Hope) and send us a pic of how you are being #Active4Hope to keep us informed of what you are up to!

if you need to be led by example then look no further than the wonderful lisa baldy who’s doing a number of sporting events for us over the course of the year. she is the first to own an #Active4Hope t-shirt and has raised nearly £500 for us already. also krissy clark has began a cycle group to train for events in south Africa called ‘a freakin’ cycle’. they are sure to be famous throughout the western cape of south africa before too long!

we hope that this will be the beginning of an online movement and we can build a whole community of people who are joined together in being #Active4Hope.

by doing this one simple thing, you can make a difference wherever you are in the world and whatever you do! be inspired!

helping through the storms of life!

we have been enjoying some indian summer weather here in grabouw over the last month or so, however last night that came to an abrupt ending when we had a huge storm which wrecked havoc in our little town. this morning over 100 house holds were counting the cost of the damage that the water had caused and we rallied the troops to the call of the municipal town manager who was asking for fresh blankets and other bed linen.

but as normal we look to go the extra mile, or maybe we should say the third mile, and our offer to help didn't stop there, this evening we have welcomed in a family who's home was so badly affected by the water, with over 1000mm of water rushing through their small home in pineview. they have spent most of the day cleaning up the mess that the water has caused however this evening we are so happy to be able to extend a welcome to dolly and her two girls who will sleep in warm beds and enjoy hot showers after their 24 hour ordeal.

another successful sports saturday...

last saturday morning, into the early afternoon, we held our most recent sports saturday, this time with help from our german students who are busy building the extension to our children's unit acting as managers for the boys soccer and girls netball teams.

trying to get everyone's attention

once again the event was held at the magnificent elgin country club, with the wonderful scenery providing a stunning backdrop to the games being played by over 180 children who were split into 25 teams, playing soccer and netball under the guidance of our dutch student, eric, who did a sterling job in managing the other volunteers and local sports mentors.

heniz the manager of one of the 25 teams!

there isn't much that hasn't been said before about these amazing events (click on these links to see other posts around our sports saturdays, nov 2012, oct 2011, mar 2011) however it must be said that it is one of the longest but most exciting days, the joy on the children's faces as they board the 65 seater coaches for the short journey to the club, the fun that is had by playing sport against other children from the 6 different clubs we run and the 'thank you's' that we receive whilst giving out prizes or for the meal which ends the day are sights and sounds to behold.

the amazing volunteers for the day
(minus a couple of local girls and ladies who
had already left!)

after the children have been safely returned home it has become the custom for sports mentors and the volunteers to play a large soccer match, unfortunately this time there weren't enough german's make up a team, so we played europe verse africa, with a few ringers from the USA and grabouw making up the european team. for once it was nice to be on the winning side especially to come from 0-2 down to beat our wonderful sports mentors (peer educators) who really should have won!

i am hoping to put up a few more photos but i have included a couple that were taken of myself trying to sort the kids as they arrived on the buses and then a team picture, less some local help, of the helpers who made this day possible.

in the news....

stuggart students in local paper

thought you might like a short update on the work that the amazing team of student from the university of stuttgart are up to here at the village of hope, i could go into the long working hours that they are keeping (at least a 12 hour shift, 8am till 8pm) or the crazy designs that they have created for both the extension of our children's unit or volunteer accommodation  i could speak about a workshop that was held with some green/ecofriendly capetonians over the weekend but i would be here all day explaining so what better way than let others do that explaining.

therefore if you would like to see some recent photos then visit the ukuqala web page by clicking here, or to see how the newspaper reported our recent break in against a back drop of outreach and support then click on the article for a better look.

a new area for our sports outreach

first week at our new north pineview club

you may be aware that we run sports outreach clubs to over 250 children each week and over the last 18 months we have been working at a second local farm providing our life skills and health awareness via sport programme to their children, however due to other commitments, such as school work and family commitments we have only been getting between five to 10 children at each club.

we know that each child is special and needs to be given the same chance but we had to reevaluate our resource and we felt that traveling over 50 minutes there and back on a thursday afternoon was not a good use of time, petrol or money so it is with sadness that we say goodbye to those wonderful children. we trust that our impact will be long lasting and if we were able to employ a full-time sports outreach coordinator we are sure that this could open up again.

but as with anything as one door closes then another opens and our sports mentors from the informal areas of town were keen to start another club to serve the children from the zola/north pineview end of the informal settlement which is continuing to extend due to the building works in rooidakke.

therefore it is great news to announce that we now have a new club, which has been running for two weeks and is already attracting over 40 children, the space we run the club from is very limited and has been littered with glass and dog poo however there are patches of grass which we thank God for!

We pray that these children will benefit from the weekly clubs which are designed to provide them with some basic physical exercise, as well as providing them with skills which will help them to grow into well balanced human beings who are keen to work together for a brighter south africa.

some unwelcome visitors

we have often posted about the amazing people who come and spend their time here at the village of hope, our visitors normally range from international volunteers who have been with us for nearly 3 years to people making a quick visit whilst on holiday in the western cape, however in the early hours of thursday morning the peace that surrounds the village of hope, and especially the children's unit, was broken by the arrival of four masked men who made an unwelcome entry into the unit, waking the house moms and placing them under pressure to hand over their valuable cell phones and jewelry.

its hard to put into words the trauma that was caused to our two house moms who were sleeping gently whilst looking after the children that have been placed into our care and it's hard not to worry if the same events might happen again, however we a not so blind to notice that we live in a world that is full of violence let lone a country that has some of the highest crime rates on earth and a little town that has seen violence erupt over the lack of service delivery around education or higher pay for the work that is undertaken on the local farms over the last couple of years.

our home was broken into three years ago, we have lost personal belongings, our fences have been stolen, many times, and our cars have had their radios stolen but i think the hardest thing to come to terms with is the fact that a unit which has been the haven for over 35 children during the four years we have been open was violated, thankfully the children slept through the whole event and we trust that this was a one off opportune event rather than something that was planned. in fact we thank God that he protected the moms and children, as well as all of the other volunteers who stay at the village of hope.

unfortunately we have to live with the fact that possessions were taken not to be used by those men but to be sold, maybe for food, maybe for drugs and that the plans and four years worth of work were lost when the stuttgart university laptops were stolen during the incident.

God calls us to love one another, even those who we see as our enemies, so we continue to pray for those who felt the need to bring this angst to our team and ask that they might know that we will continue to bring 'new hope' to the town of grabouw via our village of hope and thembacare outreaches and that God has a plan for both our and their lives!

times they are a changing!

new bedrooms on the back of the childrens unit

taking down the bedrooms which the vineyard team
constructed over 4 years ago!

the architectural team from stuggart, along with their trusted and adopted student, dave knight from england, are making a real impression on all three projects at the village of hope.

saul and nigels bathroom is remodeled!

for those of you who have visited or stayed as a volunteer you will notice a huge difference which can be seen in the few photos which i have posted, the children have now moved into the 'old volunteer' kitchen/meeting room and the team have been busy converting the volunteer bedrooms into our new office space with new entrance/reception area, but the main changes can be seen in the children's unit where the new bedrooms are taking shape and the kitchen and bathrooms have been ripped out to create some extra space for the additional work that we are planning at the village of hope.

our new morning meeting space

the long term team at the village of hope have also had to find a new meeting place and this morning we joined together on the stoop of ukuqalaI to pray around the and plan for the challenges we might face during the day.

german students enjoying a game of netball

it is quite sad to see some of the hard work that has been undertaken by some of our volunteers over the last few years being taken apart but we know that there is a bigger plan and we are excited to see how the new space will be used to enhance the work we are doing both with the children that we are called to help, as well as providing better work space for our long term team and volunteer experience.

we have tried to engage the ukuqala3 team in the work we are doing in the community and it is our desire that each member of the team is able to join us at our sports outreach in the different areas around the town, as you can see some of the team have enjoyed playing netball and even a version of 'duck duck goose' with shannon our longer term volunteer.

duck duck goose with shannon!

please visit the ukuqala web page to keep up to date with the work that is going on this year by clicking on this link and if you would like to see some of the work that the ukuqala2 team undertook last year then please visit their youtube pages here.

it's time to say goodbye...and hello!

all that stuff for two little angels!...time to say goodbye
 after three years with us at the village of hope
(sorry i cut your head off mommy mel!)

these last few weeks have been a bit of a roller coast ride, what with the farm workers strikes which meant that we were unable to provide services to over 450 patients via our thembacare hospice in grabouw, including the temporary closing of our six bed inpatient unit and obviously the passing of our dear little assi, who's memorial service was so well attended yesterday afternoon. however today we are also dealing with another change here at the village of hope.

we have been so blessed to be able to provide a home to two wonderful children for over three years, but as part of their next steps we have had to say goodbye to them this morning. we know that God has a very big plan for their lives and we are very excited about what that might look like but i wonder if we could ask you all to continue to pray for us as a team, especially mommy maz and mommy mel, as well as our house moms, who are almost mourning their passing too!

all that stuff for a six month stay!, welcome shannon.

with these two little ones leave that now means that we have placed our 31st and 32nd children either back with their biological family or into other care which will enable them to receive the loving and support that they need. we are  so privileged to have been used to provide a home for these little guys and we look forward to the next stage of development here at the village of hope.

and on that note it's great for us to announce the arrival of our latest volunteer who will be joining our team for at least the next six months, and although shannon arrived on tuesday evening, from some random place in california, her baggage was lost by the airlines and only arrived this morning. we trust that her time with us will be fulfilling and we are also excited to see what that might develop into over the next few months.

into the thirties with another home placement

goodbye uncle rob.....

life at the village of hope can be very fragile, relationships come and go, be they with the volunteers who come to spend time at the project or the children we are here to help, and as we have said before it's never easy to say goodbye.

last week we had another goodbye to go through, this time we said our sad but in some way happy goodbye's to a three year old little girl who had been with us for around three months, and whom we have seen develop beyond recognition since she has been with us.

we didn't have much time to plan for her departure as thing had moved on a pace during the recent unrest but she is a feisty little character who likes to have her own way, and in one way that will prove very useful in the future as she returns to a family in the local formal settlement (township)...the last thing we were able to do before she left was sort out her schooling and she will be starting pre-school on monday morning, where she will be joining two other children from the village of hope, so we are confident that our paths will cross again!