Physical Health South Africa Project #10010

Lifeskills for 2,587 Children in South Africa

by Keep The Dream196

Lifeskills for 2,587 Children in South Africa

Project Report | Aug 16, 2023
Bringing it all TOGETHER!

By Louise and the KTD196 Dream Team | Director

WOW, you are just so faithful, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you as a person. You have blown me away. You have captured the hearts of our children with your concern and care. You have thought about our kids, you have seen us and noticed us and shared our concern for these amazing children.

Did you know you are building generations to come! We are producing real change in the lives of children and families.

Last week I shared about the importance of team work, between organizations and at a practical level within the Children’s Program. There is also synergy between the Self Help Groups (SHG) and the Children’s Program.

Currently, we are training parents in the SHG’s regarding Journey of Life, a wonderful training which assists parents to identify the road blocks from their past that prevented them from being happy, achieving, and whole individuals. Then translating that on to their children’s lives to remember how it felt to be a child and how often they felt powerless and afraid. Many times parents identify they are actually the problem in their children’s lives.

After that emotional and healing training, we are training the parents on child participation within the family and the role parents play as duty bearers to hear their children’s voices according to Article 12 of Children’s Rights Convention.

The parents are so impressed with the training that when we ask for 20participants on Monday, we had 30 come, Tuesday there were 34 and Wednesday (today) 35 participants arrived. Although we have a donor and budget for 20, obviously 35 participants is 75% more than we had budgeted for, so your support has helped directly with this and future trainings.

The extra people who came to the training are excited about the SHG program and requesting that we start another group, which of course we can. The synergy between the two programs is fabulous.

Parents from the SHG groups where they are not participating in the Children’s Program are requesting their children participate in the Scouts Program, and they are willing to volunteer and be trained in the process. The parents who are part of the Children’s Program and not yet part of SHG are becoming so excited about the changes they see in the women and families that have already benefited from SHG. Many of the ladies have been sharing how they are starting new businesses and are adding an extra room to their homes and paying cash for the materials.

The future is looking so much brighter than before because of your support.

Currently, people are focussed upon their families’ development, however we will steer them towards community development as time goes by.

We have one Cluster Level Association (CLA) which is a combination of 10 SHG’s, which is working on the provision of piped water to their village in Burgersdorp. Often people have to buy, at an extortionist rate, water from a tanker, or the boreholes have seized, or piped water comes once a week to the community because of lack of maintained infrastructure. Using their Human Rights, the CLA are demanding better services and having a voice a local and district municipal levels.

You are wonderful and for you to think so highly of what we do, it is priceless. Thank you is such an inadequate word to convey my heart and my sincerity. I am humbled by your care and compassion. Your support and concern for the uplifting of these young lives, of bringing real change, is expanding in such a real and tangible way. Together we are transforming lives, communities and social systems in a very real way.

Its all so exciting.

Thank you

Louise

SHG Group from Burgersdorp

Our FUTURE

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Aug 10, 2023
Team work at every level!

By Louise and the KTD196 Dream Team | Director

Mum Rose

One of the wonderful parts of KTD196, in my opinion, is that we get to work in teams with other like-minded people and organizations. With team work we are able to multiply our impact and our effectiveness. For example, we work with the Japanese Volunteer Centre in Thohoyandou, they support a Drop In Centre and Mpego and implement our Children’s program on our behalf. They take ownership of the program, they support their volunteers, we train, monitor and guide as necessary.

Another partner organization we have is Seeds of Light from Acornhoek, who like JVC, implement our Children’s Program on our behalf, but it gives them an attractive program to promote to funders and to raise funds for the program, training the adults but also supporting the children.

It is a way of increasing our footprint in Limpopo Province. Where possible we work with partners so that our impact is greater however, we also implement our program directly into Greater Tzaneen through your support.

Developing these sort of long lasting, organizational relationships is time consuming, there is a lot of trust involved. We trust the partner to implement the program, but the organization needs to trust us to train their staff effectively and for us to be there when needed. Currently we work with 5 organizations. All different, with different focusses, but all with a passion to assist children to become all they can be.

We train the children to work in teams throughout the different levels of the program, we train the staff to work in teams, so that they can impart their skills to others, and we as an organization work in teams, both with our implementing partners and with our networks to expand our impact and our reach.

One of our networking partners is SANCRC, South African National Children’s Rights Coalition, a national advocacy body which holds duty bearers accountable for ensuring Children’s Rights are a reality for every child.

Our strength is in our team approach, you are part of that team, your support enables us to do what we do. Another part of the team are the staff of KTD196, I know I have introduced Mum Rose before but we have had many new supporters who have not met Rose before and since she has been with us since 2004, I think it is important to be reacquainted because Rose certainly has the heart of KTD196. She is a lovely lady whom I met when working with the Home Based Care Volunteers. Rose would walk throughout her village every day, going to people's homes to help them care for the sick, dying, and elderly in particular.

Rose was not very confident, she would always so she was too old; too tired; too stupid. It was very sad to see what life had done to this lady. BUT she had an infectious smile, a wonderful laugh and she loved children. She would smile and no matter what you were facing, those problems could just fade away. When Rose laughs, you can tell it is genuine and comes from way down deep within her very soul.

I want you to know how special the people are who we work with. Their passions and their challenges. KTD196 is able to impact all the people we touch, which is really exciting.

Please enjoy Mum Rose's story

Blessings

Louise

Hi, I am Rosemary from Sasekani village. I’m working at Keep The Dream196 organization as a field officer since 2008. I have ten troops who need help from me; yes indeed I am helping them. Before joining scouts, I was working as a dressmaker. I had worked in different places like in Nkowankowa factories and in Tzaneen at Fabric Magic.

In 1998 it happens that I lose my job like anybody else. I was sitting at home working in my house like a house mother. This was not my thing because I was used to waking up early in the morning and going to work. During that time, I was stressed and I told myself that I am useless because my husband had to support me and my child. God is great, in 2000 I became a Home Based Caregiver for an organization in Tzaneen. This was the way God created or made for me to be in KTD196.

I met Louise and Zabe in 2003, I could see they love children. My heart was very painful for the children, all the time. I couldn’t sleep properly; I didn’t know how to help them. When Louise asked me if I want to be trained to work with children, I was so excited. So many children were dropping school, getting in to crime, drugs and gangs. I didn’t know we could stop them from doing this. So I said yes. That was 2004.

In 2008 Akela Zabe asked me if I want to work with KTD196. I was so happy. I thank God because He made good things for me, before joining scouts or KTD196 I told myself that I have one child and that was a lie from the devil, God has made many children for me. Everywhere I go now children are calling mama Rose or Mom Rose and because of this I am no longer stressed about having one child.

Now I know that God has good plans for me, I can speak and write English, I can use the computer and I have confidence in myself because I know that I can give change in somebody’s life specially children. I can stand in front of people and talk with confidence; it is God who made things in KTD196. I even teach high school teachers how to care for children, how to run our program. I am very proud of myself because I thought I was useless somebody specially when I lose my job.

In KTD196 we bring change to everybody, KTD196 has taught me to teach Journey of Life to indunas, parents and crèche teachers. I am proud of KTD196, it changed my life. I am now a proud somebody because I make a difference in my community. People come to me with problems with children, now I have the skills to really help them. The children come to me with their problems and together we solve them.

Halalala KTD196, may God make you a great organization all over the country so that other people like me can change as well. Children are so important. We can all make a difference by caring and listening

JVC Mpego Drop In Centre

KTD196 supporting Seeds of Light in Acornhoek

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Aug 2, 2023
Mkhondle speaks about his life because of KTD196

By Louise and the KTD196 Dream Team | Director

Mkhondle

Thank you so much for supporting the children we serve, thank you for making such a huge difference and giving kids a chance to shine.

Mkhondle is just one of 1,000's of children who have changed their trajectory in life, chosen to make a change, become focussed on his future and to work towards that future.

Mkhondle in his own words below in the video, shares about his life honestly and openly about being a thief, about being a child who was interested in the future but in the here and now. He shares about the influence KTD196 has had in his life for 10years. What he doesnt share is that he loves children and has earned his pack helpers badge, which you can see on his shirt in the first photo.

I am so proud of Mkhondle and who he has become as a young man. He has achieved the Springbok Award, but also he is now studying Pharmacy at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. He wants to serve people and help them. Many people still do not believe in Germ Theory, that germs are responsible for sickness. In this traditional area, people believe they have been cursed by witchcraft. What this means is that people don't complete antibiotic courses, or they will throw their medications away if they don’t work within a day or two and go to the Inunga (witch doctor) for treatment, especially for HIV. This is one of the reasons why HIV is so prevalent in South Africa, people still believe it is caused by curses and not unprotected sex with a person who is HIV positive.

Mkhondle is a good example of the impact of the work you support. Thank you once again on behalf of the children

Blessings

Louise

Mkhondle's Springbok Award

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