By Louise Batty | Managing Director
Dear Friends and Partners of KTD196
Did you know that South Africa has a teenage pregnancy rate of 13% and in one school we work with, we believe that rate is actually over 50%. Absolutely frightening, totally gobsmacking to think that one in every two teenagers in a school with over 800 girls, is pregnant!!!!
The devastating news on top of that is the local clinic for this area reports 100% HIV rate for pregnant mothers These mothers will be condemned to a life of chronic illness and anti-retroviral treatment with all of its side effects PLUS the possibility of transferring the infection across the placenta to the child. The total combined Limpopo (province) HIV rate is 23%. This is so heart breaking and explains why our program is so crucial, we are saving lives, together!
Zodwa was one of our scouts, you are preventing this from ever happening again. In fact together we have prevented in excess of 1,900 unwanted pregnancies and HIV potential infections, lets continue to make sure this scourge no longer affects our children and future generations.
The good news is, that those girls involved with our program, approximately 40girls, none of them are pregnant or have been pregnant since the group started over 2years ago! Such is the power of our program. Such is the impact of KTD196 on the life and future of the girl child and their potential prodigy. From the powerful programs on life choices, self-love, importance of education and opportunities of a “dream that they keep” and achieve, the girls and boys in the program have decided that engaging in sexual activity is not conducive with the life and future they want. This future they are working towards is because of Keep The Dream196 and YOU! We, together are literally saving lives! Not just of this generation but the generations to come.
We are so excited to be able to continue this work into 2019. We have found that sustained programming with the same children enhances their life outcomes and produces the impact we are seeing.
1) Reduced teenage pregnancy from 13% in Limpopo to 0.07% in our program sustained for 15years
2) Matriculation pass rate is 62% in Limpopo, in our program it is 92% for 10years
3) Nationally 10% of all natural deaths amongst children are suicide; we have had 0% suicides in our program
4) All of our children have to go to school to be a part of our program; children actually drop back in to school to take part in our program.
This is to name a few results that I want to celebrate with you! On behalf of these young people, their families and this community, THANK YOU!
You are enabling us to achieve these outstanding effects. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is incredible and I am humbled and overwhelmed.
We would love to also show our appreciation, and in celebration to the fact that we cannot do this work alone, we would love to add your name on our website as part our Keep The Dream196 HONOR ROLL.
Special people should be recognized and you are definitely special to us. We also respect that some people would rather remain anonymous. If you could please respond to keepthedream196@gmail.com so that we can make sure to have the correct spelling of your name or company.
I look forward to hearing from you and again thank you all for your continued support. It really is appreciated.
Blessings
Louise
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