Lifeskills 2,743 vulnerable children South Africa

Dear Friends and Partners of Keep The Dream196,

What an wonderful week we have had, so many things are coming together for KTD196 because of your support we are moving forward.

The children are engaged in their programs in the communities and they are gearing up to go to camp during the June/July school holidays. Camp is a place where they can come and be kids, no longer worrying about mugged or stabbed while going to the local shops for bread or kidnapped for initiation school ceremonies. The kids come to us, especially during the winter season.

Some are self-funding and have been earning money through storkvels (informal savings clubs), by doing jobs for cash, through small income generation activities such as buying R50 ($4US) worth of sweets and re-selling the sweets for twice as much, then returning again with R100 and so on. Such is lure of camping.

You see with camping the children are able to progress through the advancement system and earn more badges. As they earn more badges their self-esteem and self-confidence rises. The younger kids look on the older ones with many badges with awe. It inspires them to do more, to persevere and to dream that one day they too could have many badges, not realising that the badges are just a small part of the process. They are just an affirmation of certain skill levels achieved, what we embrace, encourage and require is behaviour change and we see that.

We identify behaviour change as early as 3months in the program. For example, we had a very difficult boy of around 13yrs who would bully, embarrass and ridicule other kids (you know the sort) for their school uniform not being new, or clean (some of our kids parents don't even have money for soap to scrub their children's clothes!). So this bully would came to scouts and within 3months he received a hiding from his mother for giving away his brand new school shoes to a child who didn’t have any shoes. Ok, we had to do some work with the mother but the young man had the change of heart we want to see, that of caring for others, not bullying or abusing others.

All of this is possible because of your sponsorship. Yes the kids do their part however, because of your continued support we are able to pay for the other necessary evils such as venue hire, food, tent repairs and replacements, insurance etc etc. You should see the look on these kids’ faces when they come to camp for the first time, absolutely priceless. In the beginning a lot of the children had never been away from home over night and to be in the bush (not really bush for us), TENTING is such an experience that it’s the subject amongst their friends for months to come. The adventures boys and girls dream of!

Thank you from a very grateful Manager who has the privilige to see first hand the excitement on the childrens faces as they come to the camping ground

Louise

Before I came to Scouts I was stealing my parents property, I was sleeping around I was not listening to my parents. They were always fighting with me for the bad things I was doing. I was not attending school regularly. Sometimes I would hide on the school bus or go visiting my friends during school hours. I  thank Scouts because of all the things I was doing and I am no longer doing. I am a good child who is no longer sleeping around, I  also now listen to my parents.  I was failing every year of school but last year for the first time since I started Scouts I passed.                                                                                                   

Phinah 16yrs  (For privacy reasons I have not included a photo of Phinah)

Links:

• Our Facebook Page
• Our Website