Dear supporter,

It has been an amazing 6 months……………………

Volunteer News

Anne is engaged to be married in June 2013……..

Sofi’s new house is almost complete and she hopes to move in very soon.

Sandra who was with us in 2012/13 as part of the Lutheran church volunteer programme has returned as a self funded volunteer. She has taken on the role of manager at Isibani as well as focusing on youth programmes.

Siboniso left Isibani in December and has been working with the local community with a focus on youth projects. He will be leaving for Brazil in July to do a 6 month Discipleship Training Course with YWAM (Youth with a mission)

Xoli our social auxiliary worker works daily with children that have been abused or are living in vulnerable situations. Most of these children come in daily for a snack and a lunch box for school the next day. They have play therapy and one to one counselling sessions with Xoli, there have been amazing shifts in these children’s lives thanks to her input.

Isiphephelo

Sofi has been spending a lot of her time setting up the new place of safety, Isiphephelo. We purchased a house in Winterton town and have recently completed the renovations of the building.

Zama is our house mum and Xoli is our social auxiliary worker, they both live on site and we have 2 children in the house so far.

Isiphephelo is a residential home for abandoned, vulnerable and abused children. We can accommodate up to 16 children between the ages of 0-12 girls and 0-8 years boys. The intention is for this to be a short term respite for the children whilst we assist with therapy, counselling, health issues, legal and social aspects concerning the child.

Due to the lack of safe houses children are often not removed from abusive or dangerous situations.. We are working with local police, health and social workers and community members to offer these children the support they need in times of crisis.

We have trained 12 local women from surrounding villages with representatives from bobby bear (a project on the South Coast). The training was centred on being advocates for children who are being abused and the women will be working closely with the place of safety. www.bobbybear.co.za

Project News

The baby day care facility has moved into Isibani, it was previously operating from the Lighthouse Creche on far side of the Khetani township. We now have 19 babies between 0-2 years and a further 16 children aged 2 to 5 years.

The remedial program at the local primary school is on hold until we can find a suitable facility to continue this program from. We had to leave the facility we were using at the end of December last year..

We continue to assist the dept of health with the mobile clinic unit. The mobile visits Isibani twice each month and patients come with varying health issues. We assist mostly with the ARV medications handing out treatment and addressing the side effects and adherence to treatment. We serve around 600 patients each month.

We have been able to offer our facilities to another local NGO who has recently trained approx 30 local youth in life skills.

We have continued to support a number of local children with school uniforms; children who would otherwise have struggled to go back to school.

Rebecca and Luise, this years German volunteers, have been running homework support classes for children at a local primary school. The children are loving the classes and are very appreciative of the help.

As always, best wishes from us all at Isibani and thank you for your interest and support.