October Update

The kids at Impumelelo creche enjoying a game of
"Do As I Do" - which turned into yoga poses.

Creche and Holiday Club

This month started off with Holiday Club, which as usual was a favourite amongst the kids of Khula. Although the weather wasn’t too cooperative, the kids had a great week making crafts, playing games and participating in the talent show at the week’s end.

This month we’ve been rotating between crèches each week in an attempt to evaluate the crèches we will work with during 2012. We visited Impumelelo, Malibongwe and Snenhlanhla crèches this past month. The children at Impumelelo were so clever that the volunteers had to come up with some interactive learning games to challenge the children. It was great to see how involved the teachers at this crèche were with their lesson plans and how eager they were to learn from the volunteers. 

Malibongwe crèche was located in the rondavel of a Gogo in Khula and was filled with very small children. It was an interesting change to have so many small babies for the volunteers to take care of – one day they even helped the teachers to bathe the babies. Not forgetting Mama Gumede and Inkanyezi crèche, we have altered our plans so that we are teaching there every Friday.

Support Groups

Ezwenelisha Support Group has really flourished this past month. After a few discussions about how to get the group’s numbers up, the regular members started spreading the word about the meetings and we’ve subsequently had six new members. Even Gogo Joyce attended during the last week of October. With more members David has been able to begin doing more yoga and stretching with more able-bodied attendees while still giving regulars like Busi and Bheki the attention they need despite not being able to fully participate in the yoga sessions.

Along with the Ezwenelisha Support Group, the Khula ladies have been learning English this past month with the help of lessons prepared by the volunteers. From learning sentences typically used in support group like “I had a good week” to the parts of the body, the ladies have flexed their linguistics muscles and we’ve been surprised by just how much they already know. Khula Support Group has also moved to the Senzokuhle building, in an effort to improve our relationship with the community members and carers of the organization.

HIV Education

With the help of Mrs. Buyazi of the Ezwenelisha Support Group and a few other community members in Khula, volunteers successfully taught our HIV Education course to 41 adults this month. The councilor of Khula has been very helpful, allowing us to use the Multi-Purpose Centre for our lessons. A few of the members of the Ezwenelisha Support Group who did not take the course last month were able to take the test this month, which they were very pleased about. Although the HIV Education at Ubuhlebemvelo had to be postponed, one successful sessions was completed this month.

To improve our condom demonstrations, we enlisted the help of a local craftsman who has carved us 11 wooden penises to use for the demonstrations – it was a big hit amongst our adult learners.

Local kids walking home from the primary school are often
the best helpers in the AMREF garden.

Garden

Our AMREF garden is flourishing as usual with carrots, cabbage and spinach all being cultivated and given out on home based care and to our 10 Families. Although the season for these veggies is quickly coming to an end, we’ve still got plenty of carrots, beet root and onions to give out next month. The beans and mealies, which were planted last month, are quickly growing and will hopefully be used at year-end.