Life-changing Education for South African Children

Dear Friend,

Thank you for being part of YOUPSA's community of friends and supporters! It is because of you that YOUPSA has continued to deliver excellent creative education programs to the children who need it the most. The children in our programs are thriving and stand out among all the other young people in their communities. They are growing swiftly in their skills, confidence, happiness and friendships.

We are excited to share some of our special moments from the past few months with you in this newsletter.

Swimming lessons
YOUPSA is giving small groups of children the opportunity to take weekly swimming lessons. This initiative is for their safety, confidence, enjoyment and empowerment. According to the NSRI (National Sea Rescue Institute), only 15% of South Africans can swim.
Volunteer Karen Talbot, who is a kind teacher and swim instructor, teaches our children how to swim. The children have progressed so much in a short space of time due to Karen's excellent techniques and way with children. We are very proud of them.

Weekly math tutoring
We added a weekly afterschool session dedicated specifically to math. The children hardly learn any of the basic functions in school, and we want to help them get up to speed with necessary math skills. Volunteer Chrissie Lotz, who is a retired teacher, offered to help them. Her approach is very interactive and innovative. The children absolutely love it!

Reading Buddies
There are no books in rural South African homes. During YOUPSA's popular Reading Buddies program, a strong reader partners with a weaker reader to help improve their skills. We make amazing books accessible to the children to encourage a love of reading, and nurture their comprehension, speaking and discussion skills. They are so excited that they want to read one book after the other!

Educational outing to Meijer's Rust Guest Farm
Experiencing the wide open and lush spaces on a farm, deepening of friendship, and the freedom to run - a perfect summertime enjoyment!
YOUPSA's groups of children visited Meijer's Rust Guest Farm, a regenerative agriculture farm in the Swartberg Mountains. Owner Barry Meijer discussed with the children important topics like water, and what a healthy balance means in nature regarding plants and animals.
The opportunity to interact with a tame Eland antelope, and feeding it by hand, was extraordinary! Barry also showed the kids some of the huge variety of plants in his fields and encouraged them to taste.

Crafts and creativity
YOUPSA's programs include many activities that develop essential fine-motor and visual-motor skills, hand-eye coordination, concentration, precision, and improve following instructions and understanding basic geometrical concepts.
Our children made their very own bracelets using memory wire and colored beads. They felt so proud to wear something beautiful that they created themselves.
And have you ever made an origami ninja star? It is called 'shuriken' in Japanese, meaning throwing dart. The end result, throwing the ninja star, is so much fun!

Learning about art
We took a group of children on a tour of the Open Art Studios Day in De Rust Village, where local artists opened their studios to the public. This was a great opportunity to learn about a wide variety of creative work like soap-making, a blacksmith studio, painting, handicraft, woodwork, jewelry, sculpture and much more. The children have never had a chance to see or enjoy anything like this before. This experience really ignited their curiosity and creativity.
For almost two years, YOUPSA has sponsored children to receive weekly art lessons from Thomas Vermeulen, a famous South African artist living in De Rust. It is a joy to see how these kids have progressed by leaps and bounds!

A heartfelt Thank You to all sponsors & supporters!

                       Please continue helping YOUPSA
              to bring children these amazing opportunities.

Dear Friends of YOUPSA,

It's been a long time since you heard from us. We hope you are in good health, enjoying good times outdoors and keeping a vital body and mind. Thank you for your continued support and interest in YOUPSA's programmes for the disadvantaged rural children. We so appreciate your continued and reliable support. It means that we can be there regularly for the children, build stable relationships, and give them the space to open up their wings and fly. We couldn't do it without you! We hope you enjoy this news update and photos. Please feel free to reach out to us if you would like to know more about our work.

Overnight pony camp experience

YOUPSA sponsored 5 children to attend a 3 day overnight horse riding camp at 'Klein Karoo Horse Adventures', just outside De Rust. This was truly an adventure of a lifetime!

The excitement about this camp built up months before, and when the day finally drew closer, the children could hardly sleep. Their confidence and well-being increased massively over the course of the camp. They totally fell in love with their horses and built a strong bond with them.

The camp consisted of a group of 14 children total, from all over South Africa. The children learned how to take care of their horses and acquired new riding skills. The whole group even went on outrides into the stunning Klein Karoo bush, including a special picnic in the mountains under the trees. Wow, what a dream come true!

Waterfall adventure in Meiringspoort

Outdoors, friendship, waterfalls, pure water, mountains and adventure! A group of YOUPSA's children went on an excursion to the breathtaking Meiringspoort Waterfall in the Meiringspoort Mountain Pass. Seeing the water fall from such great heights was exhilarating! And then tasting the delicious and absolutely clean mountain water was absolutely energizing. It feels so good and healing to be out in the wild, enjoying nature in wide open spaces. We were so lucky to also see a huge troop of baboons, small and large.

The Meiringspoort Waterfall is in the Swartberg Mountain Range, South Africa's longest mountain range.

Cango Wildlife Ranch outing

What an amazing time the YOUPSA children had at the Cango Wildlife Ranch, a conservation and education project in the area. It was an experience of a lifetime for the children!

Most of them could not sleep the night before from total excitement. Seeing and learning about all the wonderful animals was absolutely enriching and mind-opening for the children. We saw turtles, exotic fish, parrots, humongous bats, pygmy hippo, crocodiles, cheetahs, lions, white Bengal tigers, leopard, blue duikers, snakes, spiders, meerkats (small mongoose), agoutis, flamingos and more...

And the playground experience was the cherry on top! These kids live on a farm in very poor conditions and have never been to a real playground before.

Klein Karoo Klassique Music Festival experience

YOUPSA's kind supporters make it possible for us to bring children into worlds they would otherwise never experience. 4 of our farm kids got the opportunity to attend the Gqeberha String Trio concert at the Klein Karoo Klassique Music Festival in Oudtshoorn. It was absolutely magic, and to end it off we thoroughly enjoyed the Xhosa school choir, passionately singing outside the venue.

Tour of the De Rustica Olive Estate

2 groups of YOUPSA children visited De Rustica Olive Estate, a world class olive estate in the Swartberg Mountains just outside of De Rust. The children were given a tour of the orchard and entire production facility. They enjoyed being shown the orchard, touching the leaves and the olives and learning about different cultivars that have different qualities for olive oil production. The tour included explanations about how olives are harvested and visiting the production line, how the raw olive is processed, the oil extracted, stored and packaged. The visit to the Estate shop and smelling and tasting the different olive oil types was really mind-opening.

Other highlights from our weekly programme

When we are not on the road exploring the world with the children, our weekly programmes contain so much art, enjoyment of literature, discussion of important life topics, learning maths with fun, various movement activities that increase body awareness and nurture a vital body and mind, and so much more.

Dear Friends of YOUPSA,

The extraordinary experiences that we are able to bring the children in our programs are due to your very kind partnership with us - we could not do it without you! This opens up their worlds in tremendous ways and makes them thirsty to learn so much more. Read the news about some of the experiences that the children have enjoyed during the past few months.

Sharing books & stories together

What better way to spend the afternoon than reading stories together! In various neighborhoods, YOUPSA has established Mobile Library & Reading Clubs. Other than these clubs, children have no access to books for reading for pleasure. Children absolutely love this opportunity to read together, discuss the topcs, learn new words, play games, and explore the world through books.

The magical experience of a horse adventure

One of our groups visited the Klein Karoo Horse Adventures farm. The children learned about saddle and bridle, how to mount and dismount. They were each assigned a horse, learned to touch it, smell it and communicate with it. After that the children led their horse to a ring where they were helped to mount it and then ride it. This extraordinary experience helped the children break their boundaries and heal trauma. Each of them could experience a deep connection and love for a beautiful and powerful animal.

Collaborative art

Art is a vital aspect of the YOUPSA programs. Rural children do not have opportunities to do art anywhere else in their life, and they always ask for more! During one afternoon, each of the YOUPSA children created their own individual slices of pizza in the form of drawings on card. When we put these slices of art together to make a whole, everyone was excited to see how their artistic contribution resulted in beautiful 'pizzas'.

Making skipping ropes from trash

We love helping children learn to make use of what is around them, at no cost. Every child collected 15+ discarded plastic shopping bags, washed and dried them and then learned the art of making a durable skipping rope out of them. At the end of the session the whole group was joyfully skipping with their new ropes - they were unstoppable!

Thank you for being kind donors and champions for these children! Please stay connected and cotinue supporting our programs.

With much gratitude and warm regards from the YOUPSA Team

Childrens' Mural Art Project

Children are the community's best artists. Look at the pictures of the beautiful murals that the YOUPSA children painted on two public buildings in their neighborhoods. They first learned how to use paint brushes and rollers, and how to apply paint on the wall. Then they spent time designing their own unique flowers on paper and freehandedly transferred these to the wall using chalk.
During the entire project children did everything themselves, from start to finish. Adults only provided the materials, mixed the different paint colors and gave guidance when asked. Creating something big and vibrant in their own neighborhood was such a transformative experience.

Outing to organic farm

YOUPSA's kids went on a special outing! Spensplaas is an organic farm project just outside of town. Going on educational outings to explore the wider world, build relationships and learn new things is a vital part of the YOUPSA programs. Rural disadvantaged children hardly ever have the opportunity to get out of their neighborhood, yet they are so eager to explore and grow.

Ending 2021 on an exciting note

YOUPSA wrapped up the after-school programs for 2021 with Christmas parties for the different groups of children, including pizza, a selection of fresh fruit and many surprise presents for each of them. The best ever Christmas for these children came true! They couldn't believe it when they received their presents and the delicious foods.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters for making our programs possible for these otherwise forgotten children. Your good heart made a world of difference in each of these children's lives!

Summer holiday is just ending in South Africa and we are about to resume our programs for 2022. Please stay connected and consider making a donation now to help us get off to a good start for the year.

With much gratitude and warm regards from the YOUPSA Team

Dear Friend of YOUPSA,

A heartfelt Thank You to all of you who have donated to this project so far! We are really moved and grateful. It's because of YOUPSA's dedicated global community that the children in our programmes continue to grow and thrive.

The past months have been packed with adventure and good news. Here is a brief update about what's been happening in our programmes.

Understanding numbers, their values, and how numbers change after an arithmetic operation is vital knowledge for life! Children naturally love any opportunity to learn new things, and they can do so in the safe and supportive environment they experience with us.

Every week we are helping the children develop number sense - an understanding they have not developed in school. The majority can unfortunately not do even just simple operations before coming to our programme. We used beautiful beach stones to help get a feel for addition and subtraction. The children appreciate that we focus on the process of learning and not just on the outcome of being right or wrong.

One of YOUPSA's youth volunteers is passionate about drawing. We thought of giving her an opportunity to take that further. Christiana has never had exposure to art lessons or anything outside of her farm. We arranged for a well-known artist in town to give her weekly art lessons. She could not believe this is happening to her! This is wonderful for her personally and a huge inspiration for her entire community. Her artwork has changed immensely over the past couple of months and she has begun to shine.

One group of the YOUPSA children visited 'Klein Karoo Horse Adventures' and had a chance to learn about, directly interact with and ride horses. Rural disadvantaged children hardly ever have the opportunity to leave their neighborhood to explore the wider world. Having the opportunity to lead and ride a horse gave them incredible pride. The children learned about the saddle and bridle, how to groom horse and take care of its hooves, how to mount and dismount, and ride through obstacles.

This outing was an extraordinary adventure for the children. Not only did they learn that being gentle and communicating with a horse leads to great joy, they could also explore their own boundaries in a very positive way. Experiencing such a big animal’s response to kindness and respect was extremely healing for them. What a magical day!

We are so grateful for your commitment to supporting YOUPSA's programmes and helping these beautiful children grow.

Warm regards,

The YOUPSA Team