Lifeskills for 2,587 Children in South Africa

Greetings Community!!

I want to begin by saying THANK YOU! Thank you for all of the support, words of encouragement and for joining Keep The Dream196 as we continue to lives of children and the communities in which we serve.

I am really excited, we are getting so close to our goal, we are shy of approximately $27,000 and I am thrilled about what this opportunity of reaching our goal is going to mean. We are set to expand not just geographically but organizationally. We will be able to serve more people and particularly young people within the Province.

I am asking you to make a gift that would go towards helping us not just reaching this goal but towards bringing HOPE to more orphaned and vulnerable children.

Bringing hope in various ways such as: giving the youth opportunities to dream their futures and to bring those dreams into reality through perseverence, committment, dedication to those dreams and to not be side tracked by the quick easy highs of todays society that they are confronted with daily. What I mean is that these kids, due to this life skills program, are able to stand against what their peers are doing, against peer pressure, to focus on their goals for the future and to work diligently towards those goals.

As a by-product of this program we have reduced:

• Teenage pregnancy in this program from 13% provincially to 0.07% or 12girls in 16yrs in over 12,000 girls in our program
• Teenage suicide in this program reduced from 12.7% nationally to 0 in our program
• Teenage crime in this program reduced from 70% to 1 child in over 16,000 children in 16yrs

This is just a few outcomes we have achieved but there is more because these children have successfully produced their dreams! Dreams such as becoming Doctors, Lawyers, Nurses, Social Workers, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Accountants, Mechanics, IT Specialists, Boiler Makers to name a few.

We have been asked to open in two more districts that of Venda and Sekhukhune, already we have groups of children that are desperate to start however we lack the funds to adequately support them. This is where you come in! We need your ongoing support! We need to help these children reach their dreams. 

On behalf of the young people waiting for our presence in their community I want to thank you. Our impact through your gift cannot be sufficiently expressed.

I have included two testimonials, one from a young man who tried to be a good young man but who was bullied and picked on for his efforts until coming to Keep The Dream196. He was so empowered that he was able to stand up to the bullies, to stand his ground and to help others. The other testimonial is off a boy who gave in to peer pressure and where that life took him. Although he didnt join KTD196 the first time, the values stayed with him and when he finally realised where his life was leading him, he came back and is one of our shining leaders now.

I hope you enjoy hearing what your financial support of KTD196 is able to achieve

Thank you all

Louise

My name is Casius, I am 17yrs old soon. I started Scouts at Bodwe Village in 2016.

Before I joined the program I was very bullied by a lot by my friends, I was not naughty but I was bullied a lot.

Scouts has changed my life, it taught me how do things in the right way, how to live with other children. It taught me how to respect others; it taught me how to be clean and to look after myself.

I was very quiet, that was why I was bullied. My friends thought I could not fight that was why I was bullied. Then I came to the KTD196 program and it taught me to stand up and say no. I won’t be bullied any more. I now have a voice, people listen to me.

I love the program so much. It has laws that need to be followed. It teaches me how to speak in a nice way to others, how to lead others especially from my school and the community.

I want to be a lawyer when I finish school

My name Emmanuel, I am 19yrs of age and I started Scout in Bodwe in 2014 but I never joined, I thought it was stupid. In 2015 I ran away from home and basically school and went to the streets. I came back in to Bodwe as a Gangster. As a Gangster I was attacking people, robbing them, and threatening them with knives and a gun. I did this for two years.

My home was not good, I did not have a father and he ran away when I was a kid. Even now I don’t know him. My mother was in Bodwe but since 2017 she has been working in JHB. I started being a gangster when I was 14yrs with the neighbourhood kids. I was drinking, I was in my own world, I no longer felt any pain in my heart. I thought I was the boss; I became a bully and started taking things by force. My mother tried her best but I wouldn’t listen. So I left.

I spent 2yrs on the streets. I was not scared because I had a reputation as a Gangster, people were scared of me.

One day I met this other gangster who stabbed me with a knife and I realised I know longer wanted to be a gangster, that I needed to go home, go back to school and to get a job otherwise if I stayed on the streets I would end up dead.

I came back to scouts in 2017 and I feel like my life is now good. I am back in a good life. I am playing games with children, I am a leader, I no longer bully anybody. I am back in school at Grade 10 and I am passing well in school. When I am here at the KTD196 program my mind is doing well, I am teaching, I feel useful and do good things. The community now know I am not to be feared but that I am a Christian and a Scout and that is important to me.

I want to be a lawyer just like Casius. Casius is my friend and he helped me find my right mind, after being on the streets he walked a road with me and together through scouts life is now good.

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