Lifeskills 2,743 vulnerable children South Africa

 

Avuxeni (Greetings) Min Jani? (How are you?) from The Dream Team!!

Welcome to all our new community members, thank you so much for choosing to support the children of Limpopo! To those who have been with us for a while, you are awesome, we seriously could not do this work without your care and compassion for the children we serve and we are thankful to you from the core of our hearts. Together we are saving lives and building futures! To those of you who are new, WELCOME! I hope you will find this report interesting and exciting, please if you have any questions, I love hearing from you!

Keep The Dream196 South Africa is a Vetted, Superstar, Effective & Top Ranked organization by GlobalGiving in 2022!! All due to the impact we have made through your incredible effort and the support you have provided! What that means is that you can rest assured we are achieving the goals we say we are and that we are registered not just in South Africa but also in the USA as a bonafide organization that complies with all legal and fiduciary requirements i.e. yes, we have annual independent audits.

As I shared last week, we are back to work and it was lovely to see all the staff again and see their enthusiasm for the coming year and the opportunities that will we will create for the children. Already, we are mobilizing new adults and new groups for this year. We don't advertise what we do, we don't have to! The kids talk at school and then more children want to join or start new groups. We have already scheduled our first adult training in the children's program for February and we will be opening up a new area outside of Thoyandou with our old partner JVC (Japanese Volunteer Centre).

We have two new partnerships with other organizations which will commence later this month. This is exciting because it will expand our project but the responsibility for daily implementation will remain with our partners. One is based in Hoedspruit and the other in Motupa. I have put a link below on the map for your ease of reference regarding the geography and distances involved.

We will be continuing with our food security project across the board to ensure families do not get caught out again especially since covid continues to linger. It is exciting to see the children advance through our program and gain more skills and abilities which will set them up for a wonderful future. It is also exciting to see more of our young adults return to our program in volunteer leadership roles and as mentors to the youth so that helps our sustainability and long-term impact.

Another project we will continue is the Self Help Groups - these groups will include not just a savings and loan type scheme but also sessions on empowering women to know and exercise their rights, including the prevention of gender-based violence and femicide, the development of small businesses, etc. We also want to introduce our children's project to the ladies to ensure the mainstreaming of our projects altogether. This is an exciting project that we have just been informed will formally continue throughout 2022 with the donor however your support means we can fill the gaps in the funding we have received and ensure the success of the program. Our target this year is to open 25 new groups. That is a huge task given it takes at least a weeks work to meet with the Chiefs, walk the village streets, identify the correct women and households to participate, do a formal assessment of each household (20 participants for each group), hold introductory meetings, etc and then start the program.

We are awaiting confirmation of funding regarding working with the Chiefs and Induna's as well as parents, this project closes the safety net around the children and ensures that the whole community is on the same page to make sure all children are protected.

Another short-term project we are starting this week is a Children's Rights Situational Analysis, it is basically a thesis looking at the situation of children according to local, national, and international laws pertaining to children's rights. What the law says and what the reality is. From this, we will be formalizing a proposal to our current funder for 2023-2028. This thesis will inform the donor what the gaps are and how we as KTD196 prioritize filling some of those gaps.

This is a huge opportunity for us and the children we serve to address issues that hinder children from accessing their rights. For example, children not participating in the running of their schools, and are not given a voice. This means issues pertaining to children are ignored whether malignantly or benevolently such as bullying, safety, functional and safe toilets, poor teacher behavior. If you would like a copy of the report, it will take approximately 4months to compile as it requires a lot of research, interviews, feedback sessions, etc, please ask and I will forward it. keepthedream196@gmail.com

We also are planning our Annual Color Fun Run in January, which due to covid was canceled last year, so the children are ecstatic about that, we are also working on a theme for the advocacy portion of the event.

This is the plan so far for this year, we will also be going camping with the children and taking adults for training as well as providing monitoring and evaluation services to our partners.

All of this is because of your support. It really is phenomenal and I hope you are as excited as I am about some of the activities we are doing this coming year.

Together we are saving lives! “Nkomo sweneni ngopfu” (thank you so very much).

Blessings to you and your family.

Links:

• Facebook is a great way to stay in touch, dont forget to like us
• Why not visit our website? You are welcome to leave a message!
• Our YouTube Channel