Project Report
| Aug 20, 2013
GVI Celebrates Four Years in Nomzamo
By Sophie Birkett | Charitable Trust manager
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Dear supporter,
On Friday 9th August it was fun for all as we celebrated four years of GVI working in Nomzamo. Our celebrations were at Ikhayalethemba Orphanage and Mama Lumka, our first Project Partner here in Nomzamo, welcomed our celebrations at her orphanage with great enthusiasm. There is no doubt she values the support we have given in the township since our partnership began back in August 2009.
Our current volunteers made a display of photos showing the past four years and these were displayed on the day. It certainly highlighted how much can happen in four years. The posters are now proudly displayed in Mama’s office.
We had a drumming group to entertain the children, carers and volunteers. We all had the opportunity to drum along as well as dance. For those of you who know Lea (one of our special needs children)……well you can imagine how keen she was to join in with the drumming and became an honorary member of the group for a while. Her skills never cease to amaze. The drummers created a great atmosphere for the celebrations.
Once the drumming ceased it was time for speeches and JT our Programs Manager thanked Mama, her family and staff as well as all volunteers past and present for all their work in Nomzamo and Zola. She also acknowledged all the dedicated GVI staff who had made contributions to the projects over the time. Mama also thanked everyone from GVI and hopes that we will continue to have volunteers to help in her community in years to come.
JT was then joined by one of the local children to cut the celebratory cake which was shared by all who were present at the celebration.
It was a great day, and to all staff, supporters, donors and volunteers who have made a contribution over the past four years, we thank you.
Cheryl Martin
Project Manager
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Jun 3, 2013
Ships Ahoy! Pirate Day
By Andy Eskeland | Ikhayalethmba coordinator
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Each Friday at Ikhayalethemba we host a “Fun Friday” activity for the children. This includes all sorts of activities ranging from baking to kite making to most recently, a pirate themed day. The look on the children’s faces was priceless as they walked into the classroom to see balloons, our own Ikhayalethemba jolly roger, and even a parrot. To add to the children’s excitement, each swashbuckling buccaneer was given an eye patch, a bandana, and a cardboard cut out of a hook or sword, even a mini sword for our smallest child.
We followed all this up with our usual story time, but with a pirate-y twist. We read a couple of the children’s favourite stories about pirates, and got all the kids to join in reciting them back. When the stories were done we played a game of pass the treasure, a pirate version of pass the parcel. All the kids were anxious to see what the treasure would be and who would get it. For the rest of the day we played games with our balloon decorations and built a fort, or perhaps it was a pirate ship, out of blankets and chairs.
It was an incredibly fun Friday for everyone involved.
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Mar 7, 2013
Playhouse at Ikhayalethemba
By Sophie Birkett | Charitable Trust manager
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Creative play is an important part of our programme at Ikhayalethemba Village. The great thing about creative play is that children develop their social skills; interacting, talking and sharing. This play is also so essential to the development of children's physical skills, language and problem solving. One of our key goals at Ikhayalethemba is for the children to develop strong English skills and through Creative play children have many opportunities to develop their English language.
When we had some financial donations for Ikhayalethemba just prior to Christmas, we decided to put it toward a playhouse for the children. A playhouse provides an opportunity for children to role play and to interact with each other in a positive way. It is a wonderful opportunity for children to engage in Creative play. We decided that the playhouse would be a Christmas present from Father Christmas.
There was great excitement at Ikhayalethemba when Father Christmas' present arrived early. The children looked on with anticipation as a van drove up and in the back were large wooden shapes. They sat as a group to watch their gift unfold. It wasn't long before the children could recognise that the shapes were going to make a playhouse. As the workers put the playhouse together the children sat attentively. Once they realised what it was going to be, they started planning what they could put in it. The carers were joking that they would put their own beds in there to sleep, much to the amusement of the children. Once the house was erected, the workers stained it and so the children had to wait to explore for an hour and a half whilst it dried. They did this well and managed to line up an array of things that they thought would be suitable to use inside the house. Already the children's creativity was kicking in!
Since that first day the children have loved their playhouse. They have developed all sorts of role play situations and it's lovely to see them play so cooperatively. It made a great stable for our Christmas Nativity and many of our class lessons have been done inside the playhouse.
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