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| Fun at creche with leapfrog! |
Crèche
Time for the Education volunteers this March was split between finishing lesson plans for Simunye
Crèche before rotating onwards for the following two weeks at Malibongwe
Crèche.
In the
final weeks at Simunye Crèche we were unable to carry out 'Child Assessments'
as we previously had for Khula Nomathiya as there were no children about to hit
primary school the following year. We were unfazed by this as we knew our
volunteers were working hard at creating lesson plans to cater for the younger
ages and the larger classroom size.
In the
final weeks the children at Simunye Crèche had lesson plans surrounding family
members, wild animals, ocean animals, transport modes and water safety.
Highlights for the children were without a doubt the much loved 'Apple Game'
for their healthy food topic, games of leap frog as a fun sports day activty
and finger painting fish for their ocean animals topic.
Volunteers were a little relieved after a busy Simunye Crèche to be placed at Malibongwe Day Care, where fewer children have allowed for a more intimate teaching environment.
The
children at Malibongwe Crèche started with a lesson of review followed by
lessons on 'Myself', identifying boys and girls, 'My Family' and learning about
different rooms in a house. Some of the highlights for these children have so far
been sports day activities, playtime fun and mask making.
We continue
to visit Inkanyezi Crèche every Friday afternoon. Mama Gumede
and her children are thrilled with the lesson plans that our March volunteers
had compiled, and pleased for the help received from volunteers in preparing
her garden for the growing season.
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| Malwande enjoying some time in class at creche. |
Malwande
update
Malwande,
one of our 4-year-old home based care patients, has continued to be accepted
into each crèche we rotate to. Malibongwe Crèche has welcomed her with open arms and the children are very kind and loving towards her. We are very
pleased to report that Malwande no longer needs a chair with armrests to sit in
which we view as a small milestone.
For all our avid Facebook followers, we
were pleased to post a small clip of Malwande exercising her legs with
volunteer coordinator Monique! We received loads of feedback on this clip from past
and current volunteers that her progress brought tears to their eyes.
Reading
Club
Reading
Club has been incredible amounts of fun!
Our first
registration had 52 readers attend, and we collected their name and their age for
our records. The large number of children in attendance has not dimmed the
positive attitudes of any volunteers with everyone taking the flood of readers
in stride. Volunteers spread their time between children and rotate
between groups to ensure that their time is shared equally.
As a reader
completes a book with volunteer, they check-in with the registration desk again to
have the book signed off on their reading card. We have introduced a bronze
certificate given after 5 books have been read, a silver certificate after 15
books have been read, and a gold certificate after 30 books have been read.
This is something the children and volunteers are very excited to work towards, and at the end of every month we will hand out any due certificates and with
our eager readers.
Afterschool
Club
The
children attending After School Club are having a blast! Our March volunteers
spent a total of 25 hours with the children in Khula, with an average
attendance of around 40 children.
The children always have a great
time kicking the balls around, playing with hoola hoops and getting help with any
pressing home work.
The
children's highlights this month was an afternoon of paper flower making which
ended up as hair accessories, and an
afternoon of 'chalk art'!
Gardens
March was a
busy month with much gardening being placed on the schedules! Volunteers
attended AMREF garden, Ezwenelisha Support Group garden, Inkanyezi Creche
garden, Zikhale gardens and Nomusa Gumede's garden. We can happily report that
all gardens have been cleared and over 5000 seeds have been put in the ground
in preparation for growing season.
Ezwenelisha
Support Group were also pleased to harvest a large amount of peanuts from their
garden, which were planted late last year. We're also happy to report that the group's banana plants are doing well.
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| Passing out donations at Mother's Support Group. |
Support
Groups
Our Khula
and Ezwenelisha Support Groups gathered this March to spend mornings catching up on various topics. Volunteers prepared topics
including memory loss, healthy foods, a recap of HIV/AIDS and the Khula support
group were happy to be invited into a member's house for a prayer group.
Mother's Support Group were incredibly complimentary of the
information that medical volunteers Gun and Heny had been researching for the
group meetings at the beginning of March. They said they 'proved to be true and
practical and they were really helpful'. They were also ecstatic to receive some
donations of clothes and teddy bears for their little tots - a very moving
moment for one volunteer Eva in particular who was handing over the first
clothes she had ever given to her grandchildren.
From Home-Based
Care, Home Assistance is born!
One of our
goals for the quarter was to spend more time with our Home-Based patients. From
this goal has born a new project we are referring to as 'Home Assistance'. This
has allowed us to allocate time to spend with families that we notice from our
Home-Based Care visits are falling behind on their house chores whether due to
their own sickness or their children's sickness.
This month
volunteers have spend a considerable amount of time assisting the Zikhale
family which has brought both the family and volunteers alike some great
delight. This project allows us to help spend time
washing, cleaning, mopping, gardening and even doing home repairs and refurbishments. Stay tuned over the next few months we will be doing some great work for our families in their homes.
10
Families
We are very
proud of our 10 Families programme and the ability it provides us to be able to
monitor at risk families by taking bicep measurements and weight.
Our March
example of this are the children of Pendukhle. We noticed that three of her
children had gradually been losing weight over the month of March. This alerted
us that the children likely are suffering from intestinal worms and we were able to source the correct syrup for
each of the children to rectify this and ensure the children's weight gain gets
back on track.
Two
original 10 Families ladies, Nomusa Gumede and Malina Dhembe, have regularly
been attending our Ezwenelisha Support Group. As one of our aims of the support
groups is to support each other through friendship and trust we are pleased
that the ladies can confide their problems with our group members.
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