Monthly update: April

Combining recycling efforts with fun to create a great bowling game for
the participants of Ezwenelisha's Holiday Club this month.

April is over? What?! Time has passed by so fast! We are into the second quarter of the year and this has led the volunteers down many different avenues on projects. There has been Holiday Club, bed making, the start of Girls' Club, Earth Day, large support group numbers in attendance.. read on for more news!

Holiday Club
Following the Easter weekend volunteers kick started April with daily themes for a week of Holiday Club. Volunteers and children alike had a brilliant time with activities surrounding sports, animals, Earth Day and craft making, and ended with 'Ezwenelisha's Got Talent' show. For finer details of our Holiday Club check the our 'Holiday Club' blog..

Crèche
Education volunteer time this April was split between finishing lesson plans for Malibongwe Creche before rotating onwards to Impumelelo Creche. Finishing up at Malibongwe meant various things for the children and volunteers. 

Child Assessments were undertaken before our departure, with the assessments being adjusted to cater for the younger ages of children. We were hugely impressed by the amount of information the young kiddies had absorbed. Mama Doris was very pleased that we were undertaking such assessments and noted the areas such as colour recognition that the children must work on. Volunteers ensured the children were very clear it was not a test so as not to stress them, and each child was happy to get a sticker for their hard efforts.

Volunteer Bea undertaking child assessments with the
kids at Malibongwe under the helpful watch of a teacher.

Malwande's Child Assessment was further adjusted so the questions posed to her involved pointing at the correct objects and shapes. Malwande has trouble with her speech and has only occasionally said the odd Zulu word. It was incredible how much knowledge she had stored away in her head. Volunteers and staff will continue to work closely with her. 

Volunteers were faced with large numbers upwards of 60 as they moved onto Impumelelo Creche. Learning groups at this creche are split into 3 rooms; a baby room, a middle class room of 2-3 year olds and then a room of Grade R children preparing for primary school. Volunteers began lessons of review and were hugely impressed by the what the children already knew - a big shout out to the teachers who have obviously been working very hard. We are very excited for the following weeks with these children and teachers.

We continue to visit Inkanyezi Creche every Friday for lessons with the children. Volunteers are constantly commenting on how beautiful it is to be with these children as they care and play with one another so beautifully. This month volunteers have been once again assisting Mama Gumede in her garden, and it looks fabulous!

Baby room
We saw a large number of education volunteers during the month of April, and thus we had enough to allow one volunteer to assist Mama Doris and the ladies in the baby room at Malibongwe. For first timers changing nappies and lulling a crying baby to sleep appeared as daunting tasks but everyone agreed it was hard not to love each child as they slid a cheeky smile their way. Baby room duties consisted not just of wiping bottoms, but also assisting at feeding times, cleaning bottles and bowls, sweeping up after eating times, wiping faces and noses, treating for ringworm and creating cute resources for the rooms! These duties are of a huge help to the ladies who are often with the children for over 10 hours each day.

Afterschool Club
The children attending After School Club are having a blast! Our April volunteers spent a total of 18 hours with the kids over three days on the project. The average attendance of the club has risen to 36 children, which proves just how amazing our volunteers have been at preparing activities! Fun games that were played this month include the infamous "Soap Game" which involves a netball-type setup with the use of wet soap instead of a ball. The afternoon activity was a definite volunteer favourite this month. 

African Impact's first Girl's Club!

Girl's Club was first started last year by a Peace Corps volunteer and has now been taken on by African Impact. Project Manager Alanna and volunteer Francien had a brilliant first session getting to know the girls and decorating their journals, which will be written in each week. African Impact are excited to facilitate the group, which will revolve around crafts, activities and discussions regarding the empowerment of women and girls. The groups rules are things such as 'we are kind', 'we give compliments', 'we have big dreams', 'we laugh together', 'we are honest' and 'we are family'. In total, three sessions were held with the 30 girls, who were chosen by the school to participate in the group. We look forward to facilitating the group each week!

Earth Day
22 April was Earth Day! African Impact and volunteers called for all hands on deck and planned a massive garbage pickup in the Khula community. Volunteer coordinator Monique and volunteers walked from St Lucia to Khula to assemble with fellow garbage collectors at the Khula Village entrance. 

Volunteers and staff were joined by members from Khula support groups and our Ezwenelisha support group, community workers, new garbage pickup participants and various other members of the community making for a total of 59 people. The joint display of care for our planet resulted in a total of 62 bags of rubbish being collected! After the morning events everyone enjoyed some juice and fruit as volunteer Beatrice delivered a speech about the relevance of Earth Day and some facts about how long items take to decompose. We <3 Earth! 

Click here to view a video from the day!

Support Groups

Our Khula and Ezwenelisha Support Groups gathered this April and spent entire mornings catching up and learning about various topics including gardening, recycling, defence classes and plenty of yoga when joined by yoga instructor David from St Lucia. Khula members continue to work away with their beads to sell and the Ezwenelisha members continue to care for their support group garden as winter approaches.

Mother's Support Group members really banded together this month and showed how beneficial the existence of such a group can be. There was joy as a member welcomed her adorable little child into the world, and there was grief as a member lost her Gogo (grandmother). The show of the support from the ladies towards each other as these events unfolded was beautiful for the volunteers to see how such a support system can create strong, empowering bonds for these mothers. The group also had some great fun during the last session of the month, when volunteers prepared mommy-baby exercises for the ladies and their children to try out. 

Home-Based Care and Home Assistance 

Volunteers visited numerous patients in the communities and provided many much-needed clinic drop offs this month. We can see that the colder months are already starting to affect families especially our older patients. During April local caregivers alerted us to 3 new patients in the Khula area who are in need of extra assistance and volunteers said they are pleased that they can provide that extra attention. Volunteers busy on the Home Assistance side of things as well - successfully building a bed for one of our Home Based Care patients and laying a new floor for another.

10 Families

In total over the first four months of the year, our patients have gained over 30kg on the EPap nutritional supplement, and we're very happy to report that most participants are looking happy and healthy. Deworming medication delivered to Pendukile's family has really helped the children look healthier and when they hit the scale at the end of this month we could tell the medicine had done them well! 

Two of our 10 Families members, Mama Dhembe and Mama Gumede (also part of our Ezwenelisha Support) have graduated our nutrition programme and are looking fit and healthy. In their place we have two new patients identified as lacking essential nutrients and are confident that we will have the same successes as we have with past members! 

Volunteers pose with our Adult English Class participants
who received certificates this month. 

Certificates 
April has gone mad with certificates being handed out for many of our projects! 

Primary School HIV education: Although Easter holidays did make for a slight disruption in lessons at the beginning of the month, volunteers were pleased to hand out 17 certificates to children! 

Reading Club: Volunteers were stoked to be handing out our 'Bronze' certificates to the learners attending the club. The total amount of certificates handed out were 8. We are having an average attendance of 51 and this remains to be one of volunteer's most-loved projects.

Garbage Pick Up: Phase 2 of our Garbage Collection project has been hugely successful and has attracted many new ladies to join the volunteers on a Thursday afternoon of cleaning up Khula. This month we handed out 5 certificates and picked up 54 bags of rubbish!

Adult English Classes: During our last week of classes this month, we handed out four certificates of attendance to our most dedicated students. They are so proud to be attending the classes and having a certificate made it even more special!