Hallo Everyone,
Here is the third issue of the Masakhane Newsletter. We had wonderfull reaction to the previous ones. Thank you to all of you for your support.
See report below:
Masakhane Newsletter nr. 3 6 April 2009
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Edutainer at Masakhane
The Masakhane community has received two edutainers from ABI and the Bright Kid foundation. This means that the community will have a fully equiped preschool classroom with tables, chairs etc. The second edutainer will be used for Adult training (see 'Life Skills Article' below) untill such time as the community centre is operational. A number of programmes, such as the Kare Gude ABET programme, which was implemented by the Department of Education last year, failed because of the distance which people needed to walk in order to get to their classes. This meant that mothers were away from their young children and also lost valuable time needed for household chores and gathering fuel and fetching water. The edutainer will certainly make education and training more accessable to the people, and especially the women in Masakhane. A community meeting has been held and a Parent's Forum established for the planning and implementation of the creche and issues relating to it. Parents expressed their gratitude that their young children would have a safe place to play and learn in the day. Thank you to Monica Narsee and Sarika Ponee FROM ABI and Nicholas Jaff from the Bright Kid Foundation for their efforts in this regard.
First Aid and Fire Training certificates ceremony
Through sponsorship from SAB people from Masakhane were provided with the oportunity to receive First Aid and Fire training in the village.
Two one-day courses in Fire Training and First Aid was each presented to 19 people. Participants received course material and could learn through the interactive lectures and video-material which Ben Supke from Firemed provided. Children were encouraged to sit in on the proceedings and received colouring-in books. Brightly coloured posters were distributed to households in the community.
Certificates were handed out at a ceremony to celebrate the arrival of two edutainers in the Village. Jenni Gillies and Duncan Gordon from SABMiller attended. An informative and entertaining programme was provided by members of the Masakhane Drama Outreach Programme. Adult members of this programme did a scene from their HIV/AIDS awareness programme. 7 Young boys from Masakhane did a 'gumboot dance' and a group of girls did a very well choreographed traditional dance. Gifts were presented to the visitors. See photos under 'Certificate ceremony' on the Masakhane blog:
http://themasakhaneproject.blogspot.com/
Masakhane Outreach Drama Programme
The Masakhane Drama incentive aims to bring to the wider community awareness of HIV/AIDS, VTC, Human Rights and Responsible use of alcohol. through the presentation of interactive plays which will consist of actors who have been trained as HIV/AIDS councelors. The partnership of the Department of health (Kgetleng District)has been secured in this. A full project proposal for this section of the Masakhane Project is available. It is important to note that this incentive will aim to provide the youth involved in it with an income as well as the personal empowerment which their involvement in this project will obviously bring about.
This project is managed by qualified social worker and specialist in community drama, Sam Savage.
Read more about this incentive at:
http://masakhanedrama.blogspot.com/
or follow the link from:
http://themasakhaneproject.blogspot.com/
Links to our blogs
To make our blogs more user friendly, we have created 3 additional blogs which are linked to the main Masakhane Project blog. Adult education and training will be dealt with at http://adultdevelopmentatmasakhane.blogspot.com while issues affecting children at the settlement will be dealt with at http://themasakhanechildren.blogspot.com . The link to information about the drama outreach project is http://masakhanedrama.blogspot.com
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Small ways in which you can help
In our efforts to develop the community at Masakhane we need the support of people who believe with us that there is a positive contrbution that can be made. A wise person once said that 'all it takes for the world to go to pieces is for good men (and women) to stand by and do nothing'. Here are some small ways in which you can help us to make a difference:
The support of the local community is very important in a project such as Masakhane. But for the local community to know what we do we need to get our name out there. We are looking to get some of those magnetic squares which go on the door of your car.
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Masakhane has a commitee which forms a link between the community and the various development stakeholders. One of the commitee members has been allocated the portfolio of 'communicator'. For this project to run effectively, this communicator needs to be able to get hold of the relevant stakeholder in case of an emergency (such as the fire mentioned above) or just to relay issues and information as they arise. A sponsorship for airtime for this person could go a long way to ensuring that an effective channel of communication is maintained between the community and the people they work with.
If you would like to visit the Masakhane project or of you would like to volunteer your time or skills to the development of this community please contact us.
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Last word...
Thank you to Sue and Paul for volunteering to help at Masakhane. The support of the greater community arround Masakhane is essential for this project to be sustainable.
All the best for the next month.
Kind Regards
Sonja van der Vyver
(Director)
Village Power Community Development Projects
cell: 083 999 50 17
e mail: iansonja@vodamail.co.za
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