Help Pay Volmoed Staff Wages in lean winter months

REPORT: Volmoed Staff Support during Covid-19:  
SEPTEMBER 2021 

THANK YOU TO ALL OUR GENEROUS DONORS! 

The staff of Volmoed Retreat Centre continue to be enormously grateful for all the support and donations via the GlobalGiving website.  Since the last report, South Africa moved into a devastating third wave of Covid-19, moving to stricter regulations under lockdown level 4, and then a few weeks ago moving to slightly lower restrictions of level 3. Vaccinations only began at the end of May, and South Africa is now up to 13% of eligible people vaccinated but the progress is slow. 

In July, having avoided any positive Covid-19 tests for over a year, sadly a few of our staff and family tested positive from independent contacts, and a few staff had to quarantine due to contact with a positive person. Thankfully, everyone recovered and we were able to use the opportunity to continue refining our Volmoed protocols, with the help of a local doctor. We held an all-community meeting with staff and residents to  educate about the vaccine and staff were able to ask many questions.  Volmoed then hosted a vaccine clinic at the end of July and will host another in mid September. This meant that all our eligible staff and the staff of neighbouring farms were vaccinated with the J&J vaccine. Some were too young or had tested positive too recently. At the next clinic, all ages over 18 can now be vaccinated and we hope to have everyone complete. 

The Volmoed Retreat Center continues to operate in these challenging times of Covid-19. 

But the larger groups of people that bring the income we need to our retreat center, have not returned and cannot yet return. Though we do have families and individuals making some bookings, we are on average less than half full. The winter weather has been brutal, with rainstorms on the verge of flooding, howling gales and on one day we had four hail storms! People cancel bookings or don’t visit when the weather is bad. Our income stream is still affected, due to these factors. We hope that spring comes soon and groups return!

This means that the Volmoed staff continue to work at reduced 60% salaries, for 3 days/week. It is a struggle and sacrifice for them, but they remain a dedicated team, and care for one another  like a family. We continue to use the funds raised through GlobalGiving to top up their salaries and give bonuses, especially during the winter bad weather.  We are now also using the monthly donor funds to provide support by offering staff medical support and paying emergency and other medical bills.

The staff also continues to receive a loaf of bread every week, thanks to the donations.

We were able to do the much needed repairs to renovate the house of the grounds manager that had been flooded in the early winter storms. The continuing storms mean that most of the roads need repairing most of the time. There is much to do and not enough time, but we are grateful for so much support. Thanks to all for the continued support and generous donations! 

AS ALWAYS, A HUGE THANK YOU

TO ALL OUR GENEROUS DONORS!

• Global_Giving_Staff_Support_Report_Sept_2021.pdf (PDF)