By Louise | Managing Director
Avuxeni, Minjane? Umfekile Minjani!
I hope you are well and enjoying life?
I have just returned from Australia where I was catching up with different supporters, sharing the work we do at different and new venues, and I have been blessed by people’s responses to the impact we are having.
I know I share this occasionally, but it really is amazing as I reflect back over where we have come from and where we are now. It has been an amazing journey of challenges and some defeats, successes and wins for the last 22years.
As I reflect, I came to South Africa as a volunteer palliative care nurse to work with the Department of Health and was seconded to a Home-Based Care Organization at the peek of the AIDS pandemic. It was confronting as you can imagine with the Minister for Health being adamant that garlic and beetroot would cure AIDS. Still, in all the chaos, the Home-Based Care Volunteers worked hard to care for people with HIV and their families.
During my first year with the other organization, we held a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness’s, Opportunities and Threats analysis) regarding the work of the Home-Based Care Volunteers. Their biggest heart ache was watching the orphans and vulnerable children drop out of school, get into drugs, alcohol, crime, sex and become infected with HIV and just perpetuate the whole devastating process.
It was from this SWOT that I was tasked to do “Something” and from there, KTD196 program for kids started. We had 13girls that where a pilot program, together Elizabeth and I started in the kitchen of my home, wrangling with this children’s project. Trying to shape and guide it into something that would be acceptable to more children and assist in accessing funding.
By May 2004 we had 60children, it was all working, and I was able to get some funding for training of more adults to start groups. By the end of 2004 we had over 1,100 children participating through out Greater Tzaneen Sub District and Volunteers were running the groups.
Since then we have had lots of different challenges including Volunteers from the original organization being prohibited from working with us, Drop In Centres closing due to lack of funding, communities accusing us of promoting satanism because our kids wear badges when they learn different skills, and just a lot of petty jealousy and negativity towards the program because we are making a huge difference and that affects the status quo and less than subtle decline in villages within which we work.
Because of our work poverty levels are improving, money lenders are not functioning as well as they were, Community Policing Forums are getting rid of dangerous characters in their villages, crime is reducing, wealth is increasing. Families are becoming functional, the children are becoming active participants in their communities. People are no longer feeling threatened and vulnerable and are taking stands against corruption just to name a few positives.
It boggles my mind that this is all happening and where we started, in my kitchen with nothing but a passion to see positive change in the lives of the children we work with. You have been a part of this journey; you have facilitated this work through your sponsorship. You can lay claim to all this work because of your support. We are only as strong as your support.
Now I look back over 22years at the fact we have 21staff, an office space, we are a professional organization and not just a little shoestring charity without support. We still have the same heart, the same passion, the same love for the work we do, we can just do it at a more professional level and track our impact more effectively, AND we are reaching far more people with sustainable change. Thank you for your provision and for trusting us with your hard-earned money. Thank you for believing in us.
Blessings
Louise
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