Thank you SO MUCH for those who have supported our project to help with sports facilities for the children at our residential youth centre in South Africa,
We have now taken the decision to end this specific project and focus just on our education based project available at: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/maranatha/
This is not to say for a second that we will not continue to provide sporting equipment and opportunities for the children at the project. I am so proud of our young people now playing first team sports in their schools when it comes to football and volleyball,
We are so proud of the children who have developed their love for dance and will even be dancing competetively in this month!
We are also so proud of our young boys and girls now with the opportunity to have weekly swimming lessons which is so important for them to become water safe!
And we are so proud to have given our kids access to better sports equipment, including a gym area for our older young people, and love seeing them come to life on our netball court.
So please, of course, if you want to continue to support this initiative or have a sponsorship opportunity when it comes to sports do not hesitate to get in touch with us at Maranatha Care Children,
However for now this will be the last 'sporting update' and we just want to say a BIG thank you once again for reaching out to us over these years :-)
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We have definitely reach a time of sporting fever again at Maranatha !
One of the very exciting things to happen recently was our children being invited, as part of the #KFCMiniCricket test match festival, to watch South Africa vs Bangladesh ! Our boys and girls were thrilled to be able to see the Springboks in action and victorious ! And they even got to play some cricket themselves !
Another BIG source of inspiration recently was when we took our kids to cheer on the Iron Man athletes competing in the Iron Man Championship here in Nelson Mandela Bay !
This included cheering for the #TeamOrange charity athletes that help raise funds for causes such as ours !
These are wonderful examples of sporting opportunities that our children get to witness and find some added inspiration to help them dream big themselves...because we never know when we may even have our very own Iron Man or Iron Woman in the making at our youth centre....!
If you can help support in bringing sports facilities to our centre you can be investing in a future superstar !
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We want to encourage anyone out there looking to invest in sport development for children and young people to get behind us this Christmas and see what we can make possible!
South Africa has continued to achieved various sporting achievements this year. With the national rugby team finishing as number 1 in the world. We are also seen South African women's football reaping the rewards of its Vision 2022 strategy to grow the women's game.
All of this helps to inspire the future generation of boys and girls that anything is possible!
We want to help these South African children in care have the opportunities to discover their talents and realize their potential as well as developing healthy recreational interests.
Our goals? We want all our children to be able to cycle (and have the resources for this to happen). We want all our children to be water safe and learn the important skills of swimming!
And the pandemic has taught us even more the necessity of having these facilities available at our project so we can always ensure children are occupied, stimulated and flourishing.
So get behind us, spread the word and see more children striving to become future olympians - no matter what background they came from!
The future is bright...! Thanks for the continued support, we can only do it thanks to all those investing in us and getting behind us!
Of course this is a good time to be focusing on sports when the whole world has been having “Olympic Fever”!
The kids we have staying at our youth centre were certainly transfixed to the screen (when they were not at school of course!) and it was exciting for them to see some new sports also included, with a whole host of young talent!
It again makes us see how investment in sports facilities can nurture talents in our youth and open doors for brighter futures they otherwise may not have had! Such inspiration could also be seen with the South African 4x100m relay team who broke the world record and won gold now at the U20 World Championship.
Recently I was able to accompany some of our boys to the local Youth Cricket Academy. It is amazing to see how the children learn new skills so quickly when given the opportunity – with such sports improving endurance, coordination and hand-eye coordination.
And over the years we have seen some wonderful examples of girls achieving incredibly well when given opportunities to compete in sporting activities. I was able to highlight this in some of our previous reports. It was also positive that as we celebrate Women’s Month in the country the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa commented on how women in sports “…are stories of resilience, stealth and determination that warrant celebration” going on to call them symbols of hope!
It was actually females in swimming and surfing that clinched medals during the most recent Olympics in Tokyo! We welcome that fact that our girls have such local role models they can look up to and strive to walk in the footsteps of.
All of this is part of why we would love to be able to establish sporting facilities on the site of our youth centre. And if we have learnt anything from the on-going pandemic, it is also how vital it is to be able to adapt and ensure we have enough at our disposal to give the children’s the opportunities they need for recreation and development even if regulations may restrict outside activity.
You could very well be investing in a future Olympian!
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What the pandemic has really taught us is the crucial need to have enough recreational facilities on hand at our youth centre!
It has been testimony to our dedicated staff and team that have been there throughout lockdown as our youth centre continued to operate at full capacity due to the essential service we run!
Not only is sports and physical activity amazing for children's healthy development it also has a huge impact on mental health and well-being as well,
As we have continue to provide holistic support for children and young people from 2-22 years of age, we still know it would be a massive benefit if we could help secure funding to have the sports facilities on site,
We have also just got the positive news here that school sports (without spectators), physical education and extracurricular activities can start taking place again through schools and colleges which is also where we want to help give training and assistance to our kids from a young age so that they can be on par with their peers!
Time and time again we see the joy that sports can bring. So let's see what we can do to keep our dreams alive!
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