Food Security South Africa Project #17691

Lifeskills 2,743 vulnerable children South Africa

by Keep The Dream196

Project Report | Sep 25, 2018
We need your Committment!

By Louise Batty | Managing Director

Nkulu

Dear Friends and Partners of Keep The Dream196

I have been sharing the highlights of our journey with the kids for over 6years with you now.

All of our achievement’s, all of our successes are because of your support and enthusiasm for the children we serve and also some of our challenges, and sadly some of our losses. Through it all you have remained. For that I am very grateful. We continue to have amazing impact, we continue to change children's lives and transform families.

We continue to see real sustained behaviour change and yet still we are not funded by government.That means we are even more reliant on people like you to support the children that we serve. The impact I have shared with you previously remains the same:

• Teenage pregnancy in our program has declined from 13% provincially to 0.07%

• Teenage crime from 70%of youth are victims or perpetrators to 1 child in over 12,000 through 15yrs of operation

• 90% matriculation pass rate increased from 62% through government schools (which all our children attend)

• Successful suicide rate of 12.7% nationally where our suicide rate is 0.

These are just a few outcomes, as you can see they are phenomenal and it is because you enable us to continue to do the work. Our successes are your successes. Together we have literally saved lives, we have stopped families from imploding, we, together, have stopped children from being stunted physically and intellectually for example: through training adults how to create permaculture food gardens.

There is so much more I would like to share. If you would like a copy of our Annual Report please go to our website and sign up for our newsletters and receive a copy of the report or email me directly on keepthedream196@gmail.com and I will gladly send you our report which covers 10yrs of official operations (we operated for another 5yrs prior to become registered).

Together, hand in hand we are making futures available to thousands of desperate, directionless, hurting children! We cannot do any of these activities without your ongoing sustained support. For those who are supporting us on a monthly basis, THANK YOU! Words are not sufficient to be able to tell you the impact you are having on the lives of the children we serve.

For those of you who have given monthly in the past, we miss you! We need your support to continue to impact the lives of children in a meaningful way.

For those of you who have given once or twice, we need you! We need regular monthly support. At one stage you recognised the value of our program to give to the work we do. We are only as successful as the funding we receive, without your support, in an ongoing manner; we are not able to reach the children as effectively or as many.

Help us be the solution to crime, teenage pregnancy and youth suicide. We have already proved we are the answer for the last 15yrs. Please sign up to donate on a regular monthly basis.

Did you know $4 or R40 will keep one child in our program for 1month! For the price of a little bit more than a cup of coffee, you can save a child from hopelessness, despair, suicide, poverty, teenage pregnancy and give them the support and skills they need to become active vital members of society with the abilities to become leaders of the future.

The decision is in your hands!

Thank you for your support

Louise

Nkululeko Social Worker/Project Manager

My name is Nkululeko from Tzaneen, Limpopo. I am proud to say that I am not only from Limpopo but I am a scout as well. I have been a scout for the past ten years and it has been the greatest time of my life.

Keep The Dream196 a local NGO, brought a number of different programs including scouts to Greater Tzaneen in 2003. I started scouts when I was 12 yrs old and there were only 13 of us in the first group. I joined when I was in high school and now I am a professional social worker from the University of the Witwatersrand.

When I applied to University I knew very well what I wanted to do and that was Social Work because of how Keep The Dream196 has changed my life. I was a very selfish girl, who didn’t care about how and what other people thought of me and I was very naughty, after joining scouts I stopped being selfish and started thinking about other people.

I got an understanding that as young children we are in control of how lives can be when we grow up. I started being friendly, clean, courteous and thrifty all thanks to the scout laws. I gained respect and acknowledgements from my high school teachers about the way I behaved myself and about how good my grades were.

Because of Keep The Dream196 and the positive experiences I had being a scout I knew that I wanted to help other children to have the same opportunity to better their lives regardless of where they are from and their background. I wanted to advocate for children who are being oppressed, to empower young adults that they shouldn’t see themselves as victims of their situations but they should see themselves as victors who can make a difference.

I wanted Keep The Dream196 to grow and children’s lives be changed to the best lives that they can have which is finding inner happiness, doing their best and having high self-esteem. I was employed by Keep The Dream 196 in January of 2013 as a social worker at 21years, 10yrs after joining the program and I am now able to do that, I am able to help vulnerable children, I am able to talk to parents and explain the importance of good parenting skills and the role of scouting to their children and how to help them in knowing how they can engage with their children. I am a very happy to say that I love what I do and Im happy with my profession.

Being a scout has made things easy for me to engage with the public and people I work with. This is why I am very thankful to Keep The Dream 196 and it is important to conserve it because the work they do brightens children’s future.

Because of all the work I have done with Keep The Dream196 as a child and young adult I have been chosen to represent South Africa in Indonesia as a Rover (the 3rd branch of the Scout Movement for young adults aged 18-25yrs). I am so amazed at where Scouts and Keep The Dream196 have taken me. Although I was one of the first to become a scout in 2003, I want to see others have the same opportunities to do what I am doing now, to travel, to represent my country, to be a successful professional to give back to my community and the children of South Africa.

Nkululeko

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Sep 10, 2018
I need your advice!

By Louise Batty | Managing Director

Sep 4, 2018
Spring has sprung

By Louise Batty | Managing Director

Spring has sprung!

Its the 3rd of September, blossoms are out, the weather has warmed considerably and the winds, where I live have started up. The place is looking fairly dry and dusty in expectation of the rains. In our lives, we go through seasons and often forget we are in a constant process of transition.

It is dangerous to think what our life looks like today will stay that way in a year, in a month or even in a day! 34% of teenagers think that suicide is a viable option to lifes challenges, that nothing will ever change and yet nothing stays the same! 1:5 youth attempt suicide and the most at risk age group is 10-19yr olds. 29.1% attempt suicide and need to see a doctor.

This is the state of our nation.

Keep The Dream196 builds resilience amongst our youth to overcome lifes challenges and to understand that there are seasons in life, some harder than others but with support anything can be overcome. To that end we have had 1 attempted suicide of a child who's mother is a Pastor and who only seemed to respond to people in crisis. That situation has improved dramatically through our followup support of both mother and child.

Another young adult who had been in the program, went off to university and got into the party scene. Her friends all became involved in the "Student" culture of the time and unfortunately she did not do so well. After failing exams, being exposed to the party life she tried to commit suicide. Fortunately she survived and after doing a life review realised life turned very sour when she left her peers at scouts and rovers and was overly influenced by her new "friends" at university.

The wonderful news is, she went back to school, withdrew from those friends, studied hard and graduated last year after completing a law degree.

Keep The Dream makes a difference, we make a difference in prevention, we make a difference regarding intervention, and we make an impact regarding once the situation occurs.

Both young people I am happy to share are back to being all they can be and working actively on their issues.

This is only possible because of your support. THIS SUPPORT IS ONLY AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF YOU!!!

I am serious. We can only do what we are doing because of your support.

Thank you.

The following story was written by one of my kids, she saw a post about the suicide statistics that I use on Facebook to promote the work we do and she begged me to let her write to people talking about what she has overcome and how. I have included it here.

I would like to say her battles are unique, sadly they are not.

Louise

*STORY OF MY LIFE* - Jane Doe (Not her real name)

Life is good when you still have everyone around you. Having parents, siblings and relatives who care about you is a good thing indeed! The pain starts when families fall apart, when they start to turn against you, that's when you'll realise that being rejected by a boyfriend or girlfriend is not a pain just a fever .

You will never never understand until you go through it, when you arrive home from school being told your father has passed away knowing he was the breadwinner in the house. When you see a coffin flowing through the cemetery and you cry knowing it was someone who always put a smile on your face, knowing you were his priority, someone who always put you first.

You will never understand until it happens to you, when your mother is only a step away from succeeding going crazy.. coming back from school being told your mom went crazy and she's being laughed at by kids, you'll be crying knowing she was about to change your life and that she loved you like nobody’s business. *THIS IS PAIN*

You will never understand until it happens to you when you think your family will support you through such a situation only to find that nobody cares. Yes you'll never understand, your cousins and relatives isolating you after your father died and after your mother went crazy. You will never feel it, I pray you never ever feel it when your relatives insult your mom because of being crazy. You cry knowing that your mother was fine and she never wanted to be like that.

You will never understand until it happens to you... being raped by your neighbour and then he turns every one’s mind to believe you wanted it to happen. You will never understand being pregnant at the age of 17 after being raped and trying to raise a child alone. Having your high school teachers, your friends and school mates teasing, calling you names and judging you badly for being pregnant at an early age.

You will never feel the pain when doctors and nurses giving you an attitude and are treating you very harshly, calling you slut for something that you didn't plan for. You will never understand when you are forced to stay at the house of someone who raped you and who you are not even interested in as part of a traditional arranged marriage. You will never understand indeed waking up in the morning knowing that you have to feed your child when you know there is nothing to give the child.

“Life is very complicated don't try to find answers because when you find answers, life changes questions"

To all women let me tell you that life has its ups and downs highs and lows...at times you may feel as if you are on top of the world, other times you think as if God is punishing you for things you don't know, keep in mind that whatever that is happening now, doesn't define where you are going to be.

I relied on positive words, thoughts and the renewal of my mind...and I got away from the people who gave negative thought, hurtful words and those who tried to remind me of the past. I kept a distance from those who were judging me and also those who were sympathizing instead of helping. All of my experiences, challenges and difficult moments I have learnt to trust and lean on God when there was no one I could cry out and voice out my challenges to.

My past experience cannot measure my future success; the capacity of my potential is not determined by what I have experienced and what people think about me. My suffering, my current situation and my problems will never be compared with what I am about to be.

Keep The Dream196 has taught me not just to surive but how to live and overcome and be who I am destined to be. No words for Keep The Dream196, words are not enough.

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