fathers day follows youth day

it seems slightly ironic that over the weekend south africa remember it's young people with a public holiday on saturday and yesterday we joined the rest of the world to honor our dads on fathers day. ironic because here in south africa we have one of the highest rates of fatherless children in the world, and the fact that some of those who fought to have their schooling taught in their mother tongue have either succumbed to the HIV pandemic or failed to be the fathers that their children need.

south african men are no different to many others around the world, black, white, coloured, indian, who are failing their children by thinking of themselves rather than their responsibilities towards their children, yes a relationship may have broken down, or in some cases never started in the first place and that comes from either side, but our failure as men to provide the role model that our young people need, especially the boys, is hard to accept.

so we do honour those who stood up for their rights way back in soweto in june 1976, of which we remembered on the youth day holiday that we had on saturday but we also call them, and all fathers around the world, to become the fathers that i believe God calls us to be to the next generation no matter what has gone on before.

saying goodbye on youth day

yesterday was 'youth day' here in south africa, a day off for the school children and a day where the nation remembers the events of june 16th 1976...see last years post here, this year we were part of an outreach at a local farm where around 200 children joined us for some fun, sports games and food, however the weather put an early end to our day.

it was a bit of a mixed day for us as we said our sad goodbye's to our latest wonderful dutch sports students from the HAN university. we have been so blessed by the help we have received from djuri, jasper and talitha who have not only enabled us to continue the wonderful work of our sports outreach into the community each and every afternoon but they have developed our lifestyle (healthy living) programme which now sits within the daily programmes that we run with the children aged between 9 - 15 in 5 different areas of grabouw.

these guys will be sadly missed but we trust that they will succeed in all that they plan to do in the future and look forward to welcoming them back someday to see the effect of their work in the lives of the children that they worked with....thanks guys you are superstars

youth day SA

well the world cup has fully gripped the country, south africa is celebrating (if you can celebrate the violence that surrounded the killing of children!) youth day, a day where the country remembers the events of june 16th 1976 where some children in soweto protested against the use of Afrikaans as the main language of the education system (and maybe some deeper stuff which goes along with the apartheid regime at the time), around 500 children and young people were reported to be killed.

tonight bafana bafana, the south african football, team play their second game in the 2010 fifa world cup, lets hope that the country can 'unite' under sport and come together to support their team.

we are running soccer clubs each and everyday in the squatter camps and informal settlements in grabouw for the duration of the championships, lets hope the national team stay in the tournament long enough for the impact to make a real difference!

voh in local press

to celebrate national youth day our local paper, the elgin grabouwer, ran a great piece about the village of hope, i have attached a scan copy so have a read if you have time and good eyesight!