December News

Celebrating a new home for our long-term little girl

The children’s unit continues to roll along with the gentle flow of admissions and discharges.

Our little characters always keep us on our toes and bring smiles to our faces as they blossom in the loving environment our House Moms provide.
Hearing them pick up the English, Afrikaans and Xhosa languages is always a marvel and put us oldies to shame!
The school children had an outing to Bird World which they thoroughly enjoyed and were involved in an end of term presentation. One little girl received a certificate for 100% attendance. So proud!

We again had two children successfully placed into loving homes. The first was a little girl who spent a couple of months with us and whose mother sadly died whilst the child was in our care. The grandmother from the Eastern Cape was willing and able to take on the responsibility of this dear little girl and over one weekend an aunt travelled the 12-hour journey to Grabouw, collected the child and made the return trip!! What a mission! - but it demonstrates the commitment this family is willing to make.  The aunt really blessed us as she shed tears of gratitude because we had taken care of her niece through a very difficult time.  We have heard since that our girl is doing really well and is loving being with her cousins.


Our second child has been placed into a wonderful family on a foster order initially but soon to be adopted. This is again a real answer to our prayers.

One of our long-standing children has gone back into family care! It’s going to mean a massive change to our Village of Hope family dynamic but it seems her sister will also be placed with the aunt and so the girls will grow up together.  Again unfortunately the mother has died very recently during this process but we just marvel at the timing of all things.

With Christmas coming we hope that all our current children will be able to experience a family Christmas with willing volunteer careers for the day and possibly some with their own families.


Community Work

Sports Outreach:
It was a record-breaking month for sports. We hosted our largest sports Saturday to date with nearly 200 children attending. It was fantastically organised by Yorram and Annemike, our Dutch students and the children had a ball. The sports outreach takes a break over the school holidays and Yorram and Annemike will be returning to Holland. We will miss them – they have really become part of the team.

Rainbow Smiles:
We took the wonderful children from Rainbow Smiles to the beach to celebrate the end of the school year.  We try and do beach days every summer because it’s a simple outing but the kids really enjoy it and we live in such a beautiful area of the world. It is so lovely to see these children, who have to cope with so much, carefree for an afternoon.


Other News

Volunteers:
We said ‘Au Revoir’ to Kathryn Vernon who has been serving with us for the past 3 months. We will miss her bubbly personality but know that we will see her again at some time in the future. We also had a visit from two English lovelies, Cosette and Lauren, who know Maz. They helped us for two-weeks and were very good and helping to sort lots of ticket cutting for our Hope 2012 music festival!

World AIDS Day across the globe:
In the UK our loyal team of fundraisers organised a fantastic evening of music and comedy which featured ‘special’ video clips from Tim and Maz. It raised a bit of cash and was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.

The Parlotones, the headline act at Hope 2012

Here in South Africa we were very excited to host a music festival. It was held here in Grabouw and featured some of the country’s top bands to raise awareness for World AIDS Day and Thembalitsha. The event attracted over 2000 people, went off without a hitch and resulted in some fantastic feedback. We are extremely thankful to all those who prayed for us in the planning of this event and the team of local volunteers who assisted us. It was a real leap of faith but was worth it just for the exposure. Check out pictures from the day on our facebook page. We are hoping to repeat the event again next year so watch this space!


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 (it doesn’t have to be cycling)!!!!! – 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!


Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation

Thembalitsha Charity Tune!!
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. Everyone can benefit from this! The fantastically generous and talented folk of up and coming British band, Being Buffalo, have released a track especially for us! And it sounds great too! We get 50% of every sale so please let your friends and family know about this! You can find the track for download here:

http://beingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/album/hope-charity-download

HOPE2012 and our world AIDS day event it's nearly here

for those of you who haven't heard we are hosting an amazing music event called HOPE2012 here in grabouw this coming saturday....what has been billed 'the biggest south african world AIDS day music event' will be taking place at the elgin country club with major south african bands, the parlotones and watershed headlining an afternoon and evening of quality music just down the road from two of our projects, the village of hope and thembacare grabouw, which have picked up the challenge of the AIDS pandemic in south africa.

our friends at goodhope fm have taken up the batten partnering with us to raise the profile of the work that thembalitsha are doing across the western cape and with the support of our round table (who will be running the beer tent) and local vineyards who will be serving some of the amazing wine that is produced right here in the beautiful overberg we hope that people will see the good work that is going on in our lively little town.

for those of you in south africa who haven't bought their tickets yet then you best get your skates on and visit the computicket site to ensure you don't miss what will be a truly memorable day.

we understand that there are many of you who live overseas and who won't be able to join us at the HOPE2012 event, however there is an opportunity to get involved with fund raising by joining our wonderful team at thembalitshauk as they host an evening of music and comedy at the aylesbury vineyard centre which also takes place this coming saturday, for more info about that event then please visit the vineyard web page or facebook

lets pray for some great weather and lots and lots of people who will not only have an wonderful day but also be exposed to the plight of millions of people infected by HIV and the work that thembalitsha are doing to provide new hope to those via our health care centres.

October News

Once again this month has flown by! It doesn't seem a minute since we were in England celebrating Maz's big birthday with friends and family and we are already at the end of October and thinking about Christmas! At least the sun is starting to warm our bodies again and the blossom on the fruit trees on our surrounding farms is a sight to behold. However winter has one final fling since we returned - we awoke last week to a snowy view of the local mountains!

We firstly want to thank the core team here at the Village who allowed us to spend some much needed time away with the confidence that the day-to-day stuff would be undertaken. Thanks Rob, Em, Tim, Mel, the amazing house moms and maintenance team you really are all stars!

As always our children's unit remains our main focus, however there always seems to be something to fix and this month we have had to sort out the septic tank which is used by the children. This wasn't a pleasant task but with the help of our local plumber, digger driver and trusty volunteers we managed to sort that with a few new trenches which we hope will also drain our top field to allow us to proceed with some agriculture projects.

There has also been some exciting progress around our first Ukuqala house, with two big work parties working on filling then flattening the land and installing some much needed turf around the building. We have to be intentional in setting aside time to complete this type of work as our daily chores can overwhelm and run away with us. We are indebted to our friends Graeme and Charles Cherry who have been very helpful in getting this sorted for us with the supply of soil, turf, plant hire and labour.

On the children’s front we are now back up tour full complement of nine children! This week another two year old girl arrived who is in need of our support whilst she is stabilised on her medication and one of our older girls is making the big transition to being placed back home. She has been with us at the Village of Hope since we opened and before that spent her early life at Thembacare in Athlone. There has been little contact over the years with her family and unfortunately we heard the sad news that her mother passed away just a couple of weeks ago. In spite of this she is making some good progress with her weekly weekend visits to her paternal aunt who will care for her when she leaves us in December.

The new Dutch students are settling in really well, and they have also been joined by an ex HAN social work student who is spending some time working with Maz and Mel on the children’s cases as she seeks to become a full time social worker here in Grabouw.

Community Work
Sports Outreach:
The sports students have really helped to push along the development of our outreach, working with Jason, our new part time employee, to re-establish clubs in Rooidakke. It is now attended by around 50 children a week, as well as a rugby outreach to some older guys. They are also working with Michael in Waterworks and have even started a girls netball team in that area which is a brand new venture.

We were also blessed with a ton of sports gear, bought over by our latest mission team from the USA, the kids have already received some head bands as a simple thank you for attending the clubs and the kids enjoyed wearing their new training bibs at the Iraq club this week.

Rainbow Smiles:
Our volunteers and students are also working hard in the running and planning of our Rainbow Smiles HIV support group which runs each and every Friday afternoon and we are grateful to an ex volunteer, Heather from Australia, who has produced an amazing resource for us to use during the weekly planning programme....thanks Heather! – It must be over 500 pages long!!!!

Other News
Volunteers:
Australians seem to be getting mentions all over the place in this newsletter, as we were joined by Jacqui for 3 months. Yes, you guessed it, from Australia! She has joined our other volunteers, Kathryn and Martha, just wondering where all the male volunteers are at the moment...If you would like to come and join us for a short, medium or longer term trip then as always please get in touch with Emily...see contact details below.

Cycling from London to Paris!
Last month we had a team cycling from Aylesbury to Brighton to raise funds for us, this month Danny Gowing cycled from London to Paris to raise funds for us. Thanks Danny! We can tell you that your aches and pains were worth every penny. If anyone else wants to hop on a bike to raise money for us we will really appreciate it!!!

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 (it doesn’t have to be cycling)!!!!! – 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!

Up And Coming Events
For further details check out our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation

South Africa

HOPE 2012

Top SA bands are going to be making some noise for us this World AIDS Day (1st December).
Diarise it and get your tickets before they sell out!
They are available on computicket now. A steal at R150 a ticket. Please support us and get the word out to your friends/family/school. The more people who know about this event the better!
Line up: The Parlotones, Watershed, The Muffinz, Tailor, Margaret’s Daughter
Get your tickets at www.hope.org.za/2012

England

If you can’t quite make it out to South Africa for World AIDS Day we have another equally attractive suggestion for you! The Thembalitsha UK guys are organising a Celebration of Hope
The evening will consist of live music and comedy from a top BBC standup.
Tickets are only £10 and there will be drinks and snacks available. Saturday, 1 December at 19:30, Aylesbury, Bucks
Please contact Jessica on 077 3883 1507 to book your tickets

Worldwide

A Song Of Hope!
It doesn’t matter what country you are in. Everyone can benefit from this! The fantastically generous and talented folk of up and coming British band, Being Buffalo, have released a track especially for us! And it sounds great too! We get 50% of every sale so please let your friends and family know about this! You can find the track for download here:
http://beingbuffalo.bandcamp.com/album/hope-charity-download