Education, Nutrition, Health and Safety to 60 Kids

Memoir of a Volunteer:

My name is Donna and I have been a volunteer at Mammadu for 5 months now. I arrived from New Zealand in March. My time at Mammadu has been full of such wonderful experiences. The children are an absolute delight- every day I receive 60 hugs and kisses. My name used to be teacher but I have progressed to being called Donna. As a team of volunteers, we work two shifts: either 7am to 3pm or 10am to 5 pm. We travel to school by taxi each day which costs $20 Namibian dollars to get there and $10 for the return trip home. 

The younger children arrive in the morning and start their day with breakfast. By the time the volunteers arrive it's time for the classroom activities. We look after the youngest and we attempt to teach some a-b-c’s and numbers. The classroom is often chaotic so a bit of teaching happens but mainly just trying to keep some order. They love story time and colouring. Around 10am we go into the playground and have play time with them until lunch time. I often sit in the sun while 6 little ones clamber all over me and plait my hair.

Some of their names are challenging for me so I stick to calling them sweetie, sweetheart, and love. After playtime, some of us help serve their lunch and by 12noon it's time to clean up dishes and help them with teeth brushing and then it's home time for them.

The volunteers have a break for 1hr or 2 until the older school children arrive around 1:30pm. In the afternoon, we serve lunch, do the dishes, monitor tooth paste for teeth brushing and are in the classrooms by 2:15 to help them with their homework. Some of the girls have had a school project to knit a bag. After rescuing the first one, which had many holes in it, I am now knitting for all of them. Some mornings I will make cookies or a cake. Meme Dina is our cook and takes a bit of winning over at the beginning but she really is a pussycat.

We are encouraged to travel while we are here and having time off to do that is not a problem (with notice). I have been on some great safari’s in Namibia, but most of all I enjoy being with the kids at Mammadu.

Cheers to Mammadu!

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Other happenings at Mammadu at the moment:

We are busy preparing for the Anniversary of Mammadu, which will be on 4 November. To celebrate, we will invite families from the surrounding community, donors, and other stakeholders. The kids have been preparing a special show for the audience, which has the theme of recycling, upcycling, and renewable energy. The children will perform a show and then we will share a meal and cake with our guests. The children have spent the last few weeks learning the choreography for the show. They have also made their own costumes with recycled materials. We have been fortunate to have Lizzy visiting us again to help with the dancing routine. This time she is here with her boyfriend who seems to be an expert dancer so we are sure to put on a great show this year!

The last few months have not just been filled with hard work, the children have also had time for fun activities. They went out for pizza at the local shopping mall, enjoyed a visit to the Malaysian Ambassador’s home (his wife is a supporter of Mammadu) where they swam and painted (Josia made a lovely painting), celebrated high academic achievement with a trip to the Hilton for 3 of the most achieved students, spent the afternoon at the Show Grounds where some children went on rides, and they celebrated several of their own birthdays, complete with cake and presents.

Ottilia unwrapped a princess set for her birthday, complete with the crown! The other children surrounded her in suspense as she peeled open the paper and just as the gift was revealed sweet Ashley gave Ottilia a kiss on the cheek as to say, “yeah, I’m so happy for you!”. Petrus also celebrated his birthday recently and he was given a watch and a new storybook for kids with spooky stories in it. There were many other birthdays celebrated and several other important things to do at Mammadu, none of which would be possible without the wonderful volunteers who help us every day.

In fact, we have a very special volunteer at the moment. His name is Sebastian and he is visiting Mammadu everyday with his parents. He really enjoys playing with the kids and the kids enjoy playing with him- as you can see in the photos. Seeing each other’s differences has been fun for the Mammadu kids and for Sebastian. They play with him and his hair, and he does the same. They enjoy holding him, and he enjoys rolling on the floor with them. It’s really a nice sight to see!

At the moment, everything is going well at Mammadu. We, of course, have our struggles with behavior issues that result from instability at home, or the bullies who bother our kids when they are at school, but we continue to succeed. As previously mentioned, we appreciate the help of all of our volunteers but we are also grateful for the financial support from all of our donors. We couldn’t run the Mammadu program without the assistance we get from each and every one of you! Thank you so much, from all of us to all of you!!  

Hello to all my dear friends, 

Heroes Acre is a beautiful monument in Windhoek. Unfortunately not many tourists visit the place because it is situated a little outside the city. One has a stunning view of the entire city from there. The children really enjoyed our outing to the monument. It was a moving experience for them to see the graves of their Namibian heroes and freedom fighters whom they study in their history lessons at school. The eternal flame also impressed them. The biggest fun for the little ones was however counting the many steps leading up to the monument. Although they ran up and down several times, the tally was always different, so I cannot tell you how many steps there really are. Naturally,  everyone was hungry after all these steps and a pizza was a must. Many thanks to Jessica’s parents for sponsoring our lunch.

Our new menu is finally up and running and the children have gotten used to it. Fish goes down a lot more easily and vegetables are not such a battle anymore. We are still trying to camouflage the boiled cabbage, but the peas are chewed and swallowed and not just picked out of the rice one by one. It was a huge learning curve for our cook as well because she was used to measuring quantities in terms of cups and numbers. For one recipe we need 12 to 31 potatoes, which always amounts to approximately 3 kg. We need 21 cups of rice, but this is not an amount which I can buy at the supermarket and which would make my shopping easy. But now that we have a kitchen scale our cook is more confident and has learnt how many grams there are in a Kilogram.

Unfortunately we have to deal with a lot of hardship and sorrow in our work.

The children come from the poorest of the poor. They not only sleep on a thin blanket on the floor or come from a home where there is absolutely no food available, they are often born into truly painful circumstances. Mother raped at the age of twelve/ the father (the perpetrator) commits suicide/ a child is born / grandmother cares for her abused daughter and grandchild/ she cannot make ends meet/ mother has negative feelings towards the child …..

A father loses his wife at the birth of their sixth child in hospital/ baby remains in hospital because no mother’s milk is available here/ baby experiences nutritional problems/ father works in another town because he has to support 5 other children/ comes home at the end of the month/ the other children stay with relatives/ baby dies after 2 months in hospital ….

A two-year-old is taken in by an already impoverished family because its own siblings have all died of hunger and malnutrition/ child has learning problems/ can’t read or write at the age of 12/ seldom speaks/ has relationship problems with other children ….

We try to help where we can, but it isn’t always easy.

We had two exciting visits:

2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders (MWF) in the United States.

Established by Barack Obama, every African country selects young people for leadership training in the US. These young leaders must then give back something to their people at home and we at Mammadu were the ones whom they chose to visit! It was a truly beautiful and inspiring day and I am happy to know that we have such young fine Namibians who are committed to care for others. We planted an orange tree in memory of their visit to Mammadu.

Launched in 2014, MWF is the flagship programme of former President Barack Obama’s Young African Leader Initiative (YALI), which brings together 1,000 young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States and empowers them through leadership training, academic coursework, and networking. The Young leaders will spend six weeks at top U.S. colleges or universities that will take them through an intensive programme in one of three tracks: Business and Entrepreneurship, Civic Leadership, and Public Management.  The Fellowship also provides support for professional development and mentoring after participants return home. Next week, these participants are set to fly off to the United States. 

We also had a visit by the final year high school students. They were really nice to our kids. Their mission was to teach our kids how important it is to have good resolutions, to be honest and always try to do one’s best and not be distracted by unnecessary things.

A smile is the best make-up and everyone can afford it. You do not need lipstick and mascara for that!

Our women’s group attended the Expo.

It was a great experience for our mothers and they did not mind the long working hours. Thanks to Gondwana, a chain of tourist lodges, we were able to have our own stand at the exhibition center. Our turn-over was relatively good but it was more important for us to become better known and to show-case our products. We received a large order for 150 place mats after the fair. I cannot tell you how happy the mothers were. Each one earnt quite a large sum of money.

Dear reader, you too can send me your own order for these place mats and I will certainly find a way to get them to you.

Augusto smiles again!

At last! Augusto is much better. For the last couple of weeks he was happy and light-hearted when I picked him up at the school’s residence on Fridays. He always tells me what happened during the past week. He has a new Physics teacher whom he adores and apparently they are enjoying baking cakes with the new female cook. He also gets along well with his roommate and finally has some fun at school. When we arrive back at Mammadu even our volunteers get a little kiss. I am so relieved, he truly deserves this. So, let’s hold thumbs that it stays that way. It was his birthday on 4th August and of course we had good reason to celebrate it. And on Saturday his school held their trimester festival.

As always I want to thank each and everyone for all your help and support. Our Mammadu family is getting bigger and bigger here as well as in Europe and it is good to know that you are there for us. 

A big hug from all of us.