By Nicola Atherstone | Executive Director
Dear Donors
There are so many memories I want to share from my recent trip to South Africa to visit our Starfish projects that it’s hard to know where to start. What stands out most in my mind are all the smiles on the children’s faces!
I got to meet Emma, our Starfish Project Manager, who visits each of our community centers regularly, to check on their progress and provide them with support. And Pateka, an impressive matriarch who oversees the care of 1,667 children in 31 daycare centers in the rural, impoverished areas in the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest areas in South Africa. And Pumela, a previously unskilled woman without a high school education, who was trained by Starfish as a preschool teacher and now works in one of our daycare centers.
I met Sizwe, a green-thumbed gardener who proudly showed me the community food gardens he grows at the daycare centers, despite the lack of running water. He attended the Starfish gardening workshop and receives funding for his vegetable gardens, to provide fresh food and healthy vegetables for the children.
And of course the children; like little Simamhkle, a three-year-old boy who is unable to walk and was brought to a Starfish daycare center by the social worker, where he is now receiving medical help and care. And the five young children I met who proudly told me their names and ages in Zulu. One of these preschoolers was HIV positive, but thanks to the care and treatment they are receiving from Starfish, the child is flourishing.
Being able to see firsthand the vast difference your donations are making to these children's lives was both moving and rewarding. With your help, Starfish has been able to bring not only hope, but real change to the impoverished, rural communities with whom we work.
This year we’ve disbursed almost $80,000 to our projects in South Africa, which has gone towards providing educational materials and meals for day care centers, basic healthcare services, child protection services through social workers and homecare providers, and training programs for staff members. These services support over 16,000 children in 41 communities throughout South Africa.
After a long ride on a dusty, dirt road crossed by cows and goats, we arrived at Keiskamma, an isolated, rural community without running water or electricity. Rainwater is collected in large, green JoJo tanks for daily use at the preschool. The daycare center in Keiskamma cares for 34 children, who were all very happy to see us and showed off their knowledge of numbers, letters and days of the week with song and dance. The children receive two hot meals a day, which are cooked in a tiny kitchen over a gas stove, and a flourishing vegetable garden provides healthy, fresh food for the children.
The afterschool center across from the high school offers students homework support, computer facilities, a library and driving instruction. We stopped off at Keiskamma’s impressive Arts and Crafts Co-op, which creates jobs for the talented women in the community, so I could collected 200 beautifully hand-made orange Starfish keyrings for our NYC Gala!
The following day we visited Loaves & Fishes Network, where a workshop on childcare was underway for daycare teachers and parents. The preschools we visited were training staff members on sanitation and nutrition for the children, critical in an area with running water or flushing toilets. Starfish's focus on training and development is a key part of helping communities help themselves.
At each of the daycare centers we visited, I was struck by how well cared for and happy the children are, and what an impact the teachers are making, caring for 30 children in little more then a corrugated iron shack. These preschools currently receive educational materials from Starfish and funding for the teacher’s stipends.
Starfish plans to renovate each of these daycare centers, building brick schools with better facilities for the children, running water, solar panels, flushing toilets and safer kitchens. Your donations will go a long way to making these plans come true!
Late that afternoon we stopped in at Nceduluntu, a community plagued by hunger, unemployment, poverty, abuse and neglect. The need for the newly-hired Starfish social worker, Memory, was clear. The social worker makes regular home visits to the almost 300 children who come to the day care center and the 150 students who attend the aftercare center after school.
In Kwa-Zulu Natal we visited Ethembeni, (which means “Place of Hope”) with their well-equipped Family Center, staffed by enthusiastic foreign volunteers who were immersed in computer training programs for the community. Ethembeni provides over 50 families with food parcels, counseling and general support to families. Their Residential Care Centre cares for AIDS and TB patients on four hospital beds in a modest clinic.
Thank you for your continued, generous support in making all this possible and bringing smiles to more vulnerable children in South Africa!
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