Guestbook entries

This year, 54 of our volunteers took the opportunity to write in our African Impact Guestbook. Here is Mark Rippel's final entry for the year, the last volunteer to leave the projects for 2011.  

Mark takes the lead on teaching English to some of our
Ezwenelisha Support Group members. 

As my time with African Impact comes to an end, I can only shake my head in amazement that I've been given the opportunity to participate in their project.

My time and experiences here have been so rewarding - even life-changing. I came here knowing very little about the culture and the people, but I'm leaving with a lifetime of memories.

The people in the Zulu communities have been so welcoming to us. They have not only taught us about their customs (especially the song and dance) but, more importantly, through them we all learned about genuine hospitality and about appreciating each and everything.

Many of the people in the communities lead difficult lives but I've always been touched by their pride and dignity. They hardly complain about anything and no one who has spent any time here can ever forget the ever-present smiles both from the children and the adults.

Mark and his fellow medical volunteer Laura teaching the
"ABCs of HIV" to a group on World AIDS Day. 

I especially want to thank Michelle, Alanna and Sofie for all the help and support they give the volunteers. They make a difficult job look easy.

I also want Nokwethemba and Shwele to know that they are the keys to African Impact's success in the communities. Their dedication and charisma are amazing.

Thanks also to Mumsie, Zakhele and Nonhlanhla for making our stay so comfortable.

Most importantly, I want all future volunteers to know that over the past eight weeks I've beenconvinced that a small organization with dedicated people can make a difference. No kind deed or gesture can ever be deemed as being too small if it brightens the day of another for even a moment.

-Mark Rippel, Medical Project (October 17 - December 12, 2011)

November Update

November was an exciting month for all of our projects as we worked towards wrapping up over the Christmas holidays. Along with some great additions to our weekly projects came some new and very successful fundraising opportunities for the Happy Africa Foundation.

Read on to find out just how each project developed over the course of the month.

Volunteers Laura and Mark with Ezwenelisha Support
Group member Sindy and coordinator Nokwethemba.

Support Groups

Both our support groups have grown so much over the course of November! The members of each support group have begun recruiting friends and relatives to join on the weekly discussions. We were proud to see many new members at Khula even sharing the intimate details of their TB and HIV treatments. Khula Support Group also had a great craft sale at the St Lucia Bowling Club this month, where a few members even played a match against some of the volunteers!

Ezwenelisha Support Group has begun making bags which have started to sell amongst the volunteers. They are making bags of all shapes, sizes and patterns and have even put our African Impact logo on some using beads. The group has also started growing with the addition of a few of the member’s friends and the return of Sindy from school in Durban for the holidays. One very special meeting in November the group even walked to support group in order to encourage one another to live healthily and exercise. Another great meeting was held at David’s house, where Ntombi and even Gogo Joyce ended up going for a dip in the pool!

Home Based Care

Our regular home based care patients have all done relatively well over the course of this month. Gogo Joyce had to go to the hospital to get a minor surgery on her eyes, which went well. Gogo Breast Cancer is doing well although her wound still weeps a little and we are trying to figure out a plan to help it dry out again. Nonhlanhla went to the hospital over one weekend in November and returned feeling much better as her medications have been changed and her stomach has since improved. Veronica is doing well and we are very happy that she now has to make very few trips to the clinic, as they were both emotionally and physically exhausting for her. We also have a new child patient who has been physically abused – we are working closely with her and her Gogo to ensure she’s well looked after. Visits to her home have been especially tough for all those involved.

Volunteers have developed some great home based care changes over the past month, including adding more detail to the daily home based care Log Sheet and improving the card system used to track patients. They also did a great deal of research on both paracetamol and ibuprofen and developed some literature for future volunteers about each painkiller. 

Afterschool Club

Singing and dancing at Khula Afterschool Club!

We were happy to begin the new Afterschool Club in Khula this month! It’s been a successful few visits and the kids are getting used to staying after their regular meal at Senzokuhle to play the games the volunteers have prepared. Favourites already include Octopus, Soccer Baseball and relay races.

It was a very eventful month for Ezwenelisha Afterschool Club as many of the attendees graduated from Monzi Primary this month – an event many volunteers were able to attend. The group easily outgrew their weekly computer lessons and have already started to develop their typing skills, something the volunteers were very proud about. 

Along with the growing computer lessons, the kids have been playing their usual favourite games including “Lay Down the Tissue,” relay races, Blind Man’s Bluff and Stuck in the Mud. A solar panel was donated to us in the large container of donations, and this month it was fixed to the boy’s dormitory roof – a great addition for them as they can now use it to power their lamps at night without using the school’s power, which isn’t always reliable. 

Creche

During the month of November we continued rotating around to different crèches in Khula including Khula Nomathiya, Simunye and Dukuduku crèche. The learners at these crèches were extremely bright so the volunteers had to come up with interesting and interactive lesson plans. One lesson plan that was created included identifying “opposites” such as up and down, in and out, big and small – something the kids really enjoyed. Number games and matching games were also very popular throughout the month. We were also able to provide Malibongwe crèche with a new bed, and paint the name of Simunye crèche on their outside wall.

Sadly, the Induna of Dukuduku (where Inkanyezi crèche is located) has been arrested and we are trying to figure out the next steps with our refurbishment project. This month many of the volunteers worked hard at making bricks, but we were unable to finish the latrines we hoped to build this month. Increased talks between community members make us confident that the building project will continue with full force.

HIV Education

Our Adult HIV Education classes ended on a great high, with a 100% pass rate between June and December. The class has been so successful with the help of the local councillor putting together groups that attendees have begun asking if we’re running any other courses! We hope to keep the same momentum into the new year and perhaps develop another course that members of the community can take.

HIV education at Ubuhlebemvelo went very well at the end of this year, with our final class taking the course at the end of November. The volunteers worked hard to redo the lessons to make them more interactive and in order to highlight exactly what lessons correspond with questions on the test. A difference in how the learners were doing on the test was found as the last two classes did very well.

10 Families

This month we were able to reach out to our 10 Families in many different ways. The Mtshali door and window are nearly complete (despite plenty of rain which stopped us going there a number of times), and looks great. Although the Ntimbane family has had to deal with a death in the family that resulted in the family members being split up, they were happy to receive new school shoes for two of the children. Along with Ntimbane, a few kids of Mthembu I and Mtshali I also received new school shoes. The reinforcing of the Luthuli fence was also completed.

Other (garden, events)

Much to our surprise we were still able to cultivate cabbages, carrots and spinach well into the month of November. Although our beet root did not fair as well as most of our crops, we also planted corn, which is doing very well, and our newly-planted beans are also almost ready to be picked.

In November, we started a new fundraising project – our Happy Africa Charity Shop. Taking donations that we have been unable to donate to those in need, we sold them in our first Charity Shop at the beginning of the month. All prices were pegged below R20, and we were able to raise R1336.65 in just one afternoon! The community members were so excited and word even spread to Ezwenelisha, where we set up a shop later in the month. We hope to continue the Charity Shop into December and next year. We also held another themed evening at Reef & Dune, which raised over R2,000 for the Happy Africa Foundation.

All in all, a great month both for our fundraising efforts and for the projects as a whole!

To read a reflection about our special events on World AIDS Day, please see our Official Website.