School and water safety for South African kids

Endless thanks to the many wonderful donors who helped us during the Open Challenge in April!  Thanks to your generosity, we finished in 11th place out of the 247 charities that competed!  We hope you will enjoy following our progress as we continue our quest to build a village for the AIDS orphans of Langa.  Here is a story about a very special young woman...

Siphokazi finished her matric, meaning that she graduated from High School and passed the entrance exams to be eligible for University, in 2003, but due to financial constraints, she was not able to continue her studies, “so I started volunteering for different organizations in the field of HIV/AIDS. I have always had a love of giving back (paying it forward) to those who are in need the most.  I started working for Siyaphambili in 2004 when it was established, so I’m quite the familiar face in the orphanage.  I’m very opinionated with a passion to strive for success at all times...my strengths are listening, team player, perseverance and motivational.  I grew up with two younger brothers but in a very big family so I’m used to having my privacy disturbed. Working for Siyaphambili has been one of the highlights in my life.”

“I have been working with the child-headed households due to the AIDS pandemic.  These are orphans who have been left to look after their siblings.  Being children themselves, they now have the duty of being young adults for their younger siblings in terms of searching for livelihood and making sure that there is food and other basic needs on the table for their family. So what Siyaphambili is doing is filling in the gap in the households by being there for the children who have been robbed their childhood, to suddenly be older than they really are, this is the reason why many have left school to start working or begging in the streets.”

Thanks to a generous donor’s gift of $500, which paid for travel expenses for the year, Siphokazi was able to enroll at the prestigious all-scholarship TSiBA Education, which focuses on Business Administration and Entrepreneurial Leadership.  Siphokazi says, “This is my foundation year and I’ve got three years to go.  I plan to continue in the orphanage and also plan to be in the transportation industry but that’s all still a plan - the action is within.”

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