By Trina S | School Lead, Grade R Teacher
Hello Fundraisers, donors, supporters, friends and family around the world!
I hope you are all having a lovely start to June! Since my last report sadly fundraising has been rather more challenging than I expected. I have also been very busy as we now have 53 children in our beautiful educare centre and they love to keep me entertained and busy!
You already know we are in the heat of the township and while we have to overcome security from break-ins and challenges of life in a South African township, this location is so important to myself and the fellow mamas as we need to be here, we need to be in sight and we need to be easily accessible.
Since the amazing volunteers from TMF USA and Action Change visited and transformed our space last year, we were also given a secure store room. Every day we move everything into this space, and since we had one break-in with nothing available to take, they left and nothing since. While one day in the future we would love to raise five thousand five hundred dollars to fully secure every corner of our school, I know with the fundraising challenges this needs to be put back in our pipe dream box for now!
Anyway, we did raise a little so we were able to fix the leaking roof and fix the doors and locks that had been broken in previous break-ins. We have finally got doors that close, door handles and a lock, and we hope now the thieves know about our store they won't break the doors again. We recently partnered with another charity that trained one of our mamas to cook on a budget, and they are helping to supply some basic ingredients monthly which is helping us out massively.
My focus with the other mamas now is to upgrade the second of three rooms now the children are loving the room renovated by TMF. We also were gifted our first TV screen and DVD player and a few educational DVDs, and wow how the children are loving their first introduction to technology!
And now this takes me onto our 8 children still awaiting a scholarship. We sadly didn't get any response to our appeals and fundraising. Years ago our mamas of this community came together to build this safe haven after a heartbreaking tragedy where a three-year-old girl was left alone playing on the streets and was killed. These mamas are still here today looking after our playgroup aged two to three, while I, also a mama in the community and a trained Grade R teacher, look after teaching our four to six-year-olds.
As a community we are fighting every single day to prevent that from ever happening again, which is why my number one focus right now is getting eight specific children off the streets and into our classrooms.
These 8 little ones come from families living in extreme poverty, crowded into single-room shacks with 6 or more people. Their parents are mostly single parents who are uneducated and trapped in unemployment. Every morning, they have to head out to search for any odd job they can find, which leaves children as young as two years old with nowhere to go but the township streets.
We have the space to protect them, but we also need the scholarships to ensure we can keep them safe and provide every child with a lovely breakfast, warm lunch and snack daily. We provide them with a uniform and a safe future, and all for just $45 dollars a month. We have 6 months left and 8 children in need to join us, so we hope you can help us by sharing our project. Maybe we can at least raise $2,160 to keep all 8 children in our school from today until Christmas. Ideally we would love 8 people to donate $45 dollars a month so these children can stay with us throughout, but for now we will happily raise what we can to keep them safe.
With GlobalGiving's Bonus Day coming up, all unique donations up to a hundred dollars will be matched on July fifteenth, so please save the date! If you can, please share with your friends, family and networks so together we can keep them all safe.
Thank you once again for being on our side, taking the time to donate, fundraise and engage in my updates. We really value every single person and we would love to welcome you to visit us here in Cape Town anytime!
Trina x
By Trina | School Lead
By Trina | Siyakhula Principal
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