Education South Africa Project #18449

Artisan skills for 8 youth, South Africa

A microproject by Keep The Dream196

Artisan skills for 8 youth, South Africa

Project Report | Sep 23, 2025
A Snapshot look at 2026!

By Louise | Managing Director

Asanda

Avuxeni, Minjani? Umfekile minjane!

I thought I would catch you up on some of our plans for 2026.

Next year, Keep The Dream196 (KTD196) is committed to deepening its impact and extending its reach across rural Limpopo, we have ambitious yet achievable goals which build on two and half decades of proven delivery in child and community development.

1. Youth Development and Leadership

KTD196 are planning to reach between 2-3,000 children and youth weekly through our Children’s leadership and life-skills programme. Weekly sessions build confidence, teamwork, problem-solving and resilience, ensuring children grow into responsible leaders in their schools and communities. To complement these sessions, intensive leadership and capacity-building workshops for youth with advanced leadership skills. This program will serve as incubators for child advocates and future mentors, creating a ripple effect of positive influence among their peers.

2. Child Protection and Participation

For KTD196, child protection and participation is a cornerstone goal. Every youth session will integrate safeguarding messages, empowering children to understand their rights, recognise risks, and seek help when needed. At the same time, troop and patrol councils will ensure that children are not just beneficiaries but decision-makers in programme planning. This participatory approach will strengthen advocacy skills and foster a culture were young voices shape community priorities. Facilitators and volunteers will have safeguarding training, ensuring consistent adherence to child protection standards across all sites.

3. Caregiver and Family Empowerment

Recognising that child wellbeing is closely tied to family stability, KTD196 will expand its network of Self-Help Groups (SHGs). The target is to establish 25 new SHGs, engaging around 500 additional women and theirfamilies in savings, loans, and mutual support. These groups will not only strengthen household economies but also provide a platform for parenting and child protection workshops. The goal of at least 70% of participants becoming income earners that improve both financial resilience and the ability of caregivers to provide safe, nurturing homes.

4. Community Engagement and Social Development

KTD196 will continue to work with Community Leaders (Induna’s) to provide circles of support to children to ensure their voices are heard and responded to positively through our engagement and mobilization. Action plans will be developed and implemented by the Induna’s with community stakeholders to encourage child engagement and address issues primarily related at community level.

5. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL)

To ensure accountability and continuous improvement, KTD196 will strengthen its Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning systems in 2026. Impactreports will capture both quantitative results and human stories of transformation this will give partners transparent evidence of outcomes, while also ensuring that children and caregivers see tangible progress in their lives.

There is a lot of jargon associated with the work we do, but this is where we are and what our plans are for the future. I hope you are as excited as we are about where we are heading and what we are wanting to achieve. You are apart of all our plans, all our achievements, all our successes. Your support enables us to dream big and achieve big!

Thank you for continuing to walk on this journey with us.

Bless you

Louise

I am Asanda (twenty years old) from 1^st Mhagweni Scouts, University of Limpopo Rover’s Crew. I started Scouts later in 2013, so I have been in Scouts for about twelve years to date. A little background story, Scouts was introduced to me via school and I remember on my first day I just when there to check out what this Scouting is all about and when I got there I really enjoyed the activities we did for the day, for someone that is quite shy and introverted I felt free I was happy and I just wanted more of it that’s when I decided to fully commit to the movement.

My journey in Scouts has been quite amazing, I meet good leaders who have been playing a very good role in KTD196, I managed to make friends that made the journey to be very exciting and fun, and a lot of other amazing people. That was a huge deal for me as I really was terribly shy. I was empowered to do public speaking which terrified me in the beginning, but I became confident over time.

I learned leadership skills, I mentored the younger children, and we took control of our troop and managed it ourselves using the Spider Tool, a monitoring tool. We were responsible for the management, administration, planning, monitoring, and evaluation of our performance as a troop. I am learning about this at university now, but I knew about project management in high school. I learned about conflict management and resolution during scouts when we had difficult issues to overcome such as our adult leader was not representing scouts nicely in the community, so we asked her to leave. We found a replacement and trained the new adult. It was a difficult time for all of us, especially for me because I don’t like conflict, but I learned not to be scared of conflict. I still don’t like it, but I am no longer scared of it.

The activities such as camping, hiking, and living outdoors which I believe are the best and most exciting things about Scouts, they have contributed a lot to me being free and open around other people they really contributed to my personal growth. The most important lessons I learned are being kind, showing love and respect for the next person, and building a buddy system.

The Scouts project has been a good journey that needs commitment, I believe I have managed to stick around up to this far because I really love Scouts and the spirit just lives in me.

I am now studying for a Bachelor of Information Science, I want to work in anything to do with research and information knowledge management. I see knowledge management as a key industry for the future, possibly to become an information broker or business analyst.

Lastly, I am grateful for all the people who have supported us and stuck with Keep The Dream196 up to this far, you are making a very huge impact in so many children’s lives, I am just one of them.

Thank you

Asanda

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Sep 17, 2025
Elizabeth is at it again!

By Louise | Managing Director

Elizabeth, Co-Founder, Program manager and Trainer

Avuxeni? Minjane? Umfekile minjane!

Every week I sit at my computer and decide which story you may want to hear about.

I think about the goings on over the past 7days, the highs and the lows. I sift through so many stories to bring you up to date information that I trust is interesting.

This week is not different.

Its just hard to decide which story.

The kids are revving up for the camporee, an annual competition we hold in Limpopo to show case the different traditional Scouting Skills the kids have learnt over the years. This will take place in the second week of October but already they are preparing, such is the excitement. We have many trophy’s for the Camporee all broken up into different skills we are testing.

The children’s project is growing, almost every week I hear of a new group that is being opened by the SHG team but also by the ladies of the SHG team. It is so exciting because usually around this time, the groups start shrinking as the older children are expected to stay at school and study for long hours or at home. Such is the value of the program.

Elizabeth has been having more fun with the Induna’s this week, you need to understand the role of women in a particularly patriarchal Sepedi society and one that is quite racist against the Xitsonga people is a challenge in any one’s books. Elizabeth being Elizabeth is not afraid and call people out for the attitudes. Two weeks ago, they gave her a hard time about getting on her knees and then her belly to tell them food was ready.

This week, while doing communication training with them she had a plethora of examples from their behaviours to reflect back on as examples and road blocks to communication. For example, these Induna’s require R100 to be giving to even speak to them. They also expect people to come to them on their knees and present their issues. Other road blocks included their unwillingness to hear a Xitsonga women tell them what to do. This all came out during the training. But she also challenged them on the value of the training and what would have happened if she had refused to do the training with them because of their attitudes.

It was a real shock the Induna’s to hear these things, then Elizabeth projected it on to the people groups they deal with, foreigners, women and children. The realization started to hit home about how they were actual road blocks to communication, there was a real shift in perceptions. So much so, instead of being offended, which is a common response, they begged Elizabeth to return with more training. As an aside, four of the Induna’s wanted to know if she was married and if she would consider them. Its certainly not hard to imagine her response.

I also had feedback from Elizabeth yesterday about another group of Induna’s who went through training earlier this year, they are from the Xitsonga tribe and are very keen to implement the training they have received. They have created action plans and are requested help to implement the plans particularly with the Scouts to create village committees to include the voices of the children in addressing issues about children. Already some have been to the newly for CPF’s (Community Policing Forums) formed by the Cluster Level Associations and asked for help regarding students coming to school with drugs and alcohol, plus weapons. They are pushing for crime to be irradicated in the schools. The Scouts with teachers (following training by Elizabeth) are forming School Governing Boards and Classroom Level Committees to address issues.

All these stories have back stories, but I just wanted to share snapshots of this weeks impact. We continue through your support, we couldn’t do this without you, thank you so much for believing in the work we do.

Many blessings to you

Louise

My name is Elizabeth and I come from Shiluvane Village. I co-founded the beginnings of Keep The Dream196 in 2003 with Louise. In reality, Louise did all the setting up of the organization in 2007 but together we established the program and worked together training people, I did the monitoring and translation because of the different languages.

I have 3 daughters who are all involved with KTD196. One is a national commissioner of Cubs and works with WOSM (The World Scout Movement) she is also a Rover and a full-time employee of KTD196 as a Social Worker, the second one is a rover and also working as an Auditor and finally the last one is a Cub and in grade 1 at school.

I love watching kids grow from being teenagers to being young responsible adults. Although I trained as a Secondary Teacher, I completed my qualification at a time when there were too many teachers, and rather than sit at home and do nothing I volunteered as a Home Based Caregiver.

I was quickly promoted to Coordinator because of my English skills and because of the extra competencies I have as a professional. We were not employed back then, we volunteered to help in our communities because so many people were dying and I wanted to help. I also saw how hard it was for the children, I opened my home to any and all children, my daughters would bring home kids every day that just needed to belong, to have good friends, it was easy to start with these children in 2003, I already had a group. We started with 13girls and six months later we had 60kids all passionate and loving the program. I was amazed. I didn’t think it would be so popular. Back then it was hard because I had to learn the program and teach it the next week.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing but Louise encouraged me and together we made it work. My daughters were a great help as well. I still stay in touch with many of those children. Because of the success of the program, I had the opportunity to be on TV on different programs which you can google if you want. Programs such as Beyond Classroom, Earned, Nhlalala Ya Rixaka, and News 24 all because of KTD196. I hated being interviewed, the children are the real stars of this program, not me.

I have learned it takes a community to raise a child, hence I have been very involved with training parents and Induna’s (Village Chiefs) to make sure this happens. It’s important that we all look after every child regardless of bloodline. In life, I have learned to it’s important to give back, to make a difference where ever I can. Thank you for helping me do that, to make a difference.

Your support means we can do just that, raise many children in the way they should go, thank you!

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Sep 10, 2025
Cultural Challenges and Conflicts!

By Louise | Managing Director

Avuxeni! Minjani? Umfikile Minjane!

I hope you are well.

Last week or so I spoke about some of the challenges we are facing with other stakeholders in the communities we serve. I want to highlight two of them, one funny, one not so funny.

Last week the CLA (Cluster Level Association), as part of their mandate, organized with the Community Policing Forum to attend a local high school and speak about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and teenage crime. The CLA organized the event with the Principal of the school, and the police to be in attendance and give the presentation, KTD196 was present in a supportive role to ensure it all went smoothly.

On arrival, the teachers new nothing of the awareness program, the Principal was absent and had not informed his staff of the program. Sadly, the senior policewoman became very angry aggressively demanding her way with the CLA, blaming the CLA women for not confirming and wasting her time. She refused to allow the children to come into the hall to attend the training by grades, instead demanded they all stand outside in the blazing sun, for a once off presentation. We are talking about an hours presentation in 38C. No shade.

She became increasingly unreasonable. She was yelling at the CLA ladies, remember these are the poorest of the poor, and they are used to being treated badly so this women proceeded to embarrass and debase them in front of anyone who would listen. Finally, my staff member stepped in and addressed this woman in English, that stopped the tirade, for a moment, the policewoman realised my staff member was educated, and would not contend with her behaviour. Eventually it was decided to reconvene at a later date and go through the process again of arranging another date.

The policewoman, having been shut down, proceeded to ring the local Induna (who was newly installed and who didn’t know KTD196 or our work) and was furious about the debacle and told the Induna, she would have the women arrested for wasting her time. The Induna, not knowing us or what had really happened believed the policewoman and began abusing the women. Again, my staff member stepped in and convinced him to come to the school.

The policewoman left, the Induna came. He was very aggressive and refused to listen to the CLA, once again my staff stepped in and rang the policewoman and told her the Induna was now present and proceeded to explain what had really happened. The policewoman backed down very quickly, the Induna was shocked about the lies told. What an introduction to the work we do. Thank goodness we had already made an appointment to meet with the Induna in the coming week to introduce ourselves to him, but what a way to make a first impression.

Following this unnecessary, extremely upsetting situation, my staff have held meetings with the Policewoman’s seniors and laid a formal complaint regarding her behaviour. Other community members in our program who are very poor also have very negative interactions with this woman. Her role is to be the Community Liaison between the Community and the Police. Her Senior was very shocked, the staff whom she worked with also exposed her behaviour as a bully who would at every turn be abuse and rude. I will keep you posted as to the outcome; an investigation is currently underway.

A more light-hearted situation arose recently at a training with some very traditional Sotho Induna’s. My trainer, Elizabeth (Xitsonga lady not Sotho) was doing the training, they wanted her to wear a scarf over her head, a long skirt, and to be very subservient to them as a sign of deference and respect. She compromised, despite it not being her culture, but they took it too far!

During the break for lunch, Elizabeth and the other facilitator prepared the lunch. When Elizabeth went to the Induna’s to inform them lunch was ready, they demanded that she enter the room on her knees and then lie down on the floor to inform them lunch was ready. Elizabeth stated that it was not her culture to do that, she had compromised with the dress code but that was as far as it went. She then proceeded to inform them, that she would not be on her knees or grovel on her belly and if they needed that to be able to be free to eat the food as prepared, then she would just pack up the food!

Needless to say, they came sheepishly in for lunch, the power of the tummy won them over! Culture is always a challenge, whether it is South African culture (Sotho, Xitsonga or Venda – which are the predominant local cultures) or Zimbabwe and Mozambiquean culture with the odd Australian (me) plus we also have on staff two Xhosa speakers. It is always interesting.

I hope you enjoyed these stories and have a better understanding of some of the challenges we contend with.

Blessings to you

Louise

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