As I am sure you are all aware, Knit-A-Square distributes to orphaned and vulnerable children all over South Africa and one of the areas that we have sent numerous boxes of your hand knitted items to, is KwaZulu Natal. A very big thank you to my hubby, Peter’s company, Polymer Colour Systems, who very generously arrange and cover the cost of couriering boxes to both Durban and Cape Town for KAS.
We recently received news via Sandra Pillay of Mama Ntombi’s Community Projects (MNCP), an organisation that KAS has supported for some time now, of a devastating shack fire in the Jika Joe informal settlement in Pietermaritzburg which is about an hour’s drive from Durban. We were pleased to be able to help the victims of this fire by sending them five larges boxes filled with much needed items.
Loading the KAS van with items to be couriered to Durban.
The Mama Ntombi’s Community Projects (MNCP) started off as a ministry of The Christian Fellowship during Easter of 2007. Dedicated men and women from the Church sponsored food for the children in the Jika Joe informal settlement and would make sandwiches for them and then minister to the children on Sunday afternoons. They would meet the children under a tree they used for shelter from the rain or sun, and as a result, the gathering was named the Wayside Sunday School. In 2008, MNCP extended the program to the Mattison’s informal settlement as well. MNCP now care for 300 children from the two informal settlements in Pietermaritzburg.
KAS has also supported other organisations in KZN some of which have been featured in previous reports. With the help of Rob and Chantel, family of Wendy’s who live in Durban, KAS blankets have been distributed to children at various homes including Ray of Hope, Malvern Children’s Home and The Domino Foundation.
Rob and Chantel who have helped collect squares in Durban and distribute goods.
A little about these three organisations that KAS has donated items to:
The Immanuel Christian Church started the baby home Ray of Hope or Imisebe Yelanga. Imisebe Yelanga means ‘rays of sun’ and the home offers love, care, protection and hope to babies and toddlers in crisis.
House parents provide a loving and nurturing environment for the babies while taking care of the day to day running of the home, wonderfully assisted by a team of day and night caregivers.
Imisebe Yelanga is not intended to be an orphanage but is essentially a transition home, a temporary home to look after abandoned babies while waiting for adoption placement. The home cares for babies and toddlers under the age of three who have been abandoned or removed from their homes. The home is able to care for up to six children at a time, under the care of a permanent house mother and father. The children will stay with Imisebe Yelanga until Durban Children’s Society places them in foster care for a maximum duration of eight months. Church volunteers and donations sustain the running of this organisation.
The Malvern Children’s Home just outside Durban, provides for 120 children between the ages of 3 – 18 years. The children are placed with this home because they have nobody to look after them or as a result of their care giver(s)’ inability to do so due to poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, and domestic violence. Child neglect and child abuse are still rife in this community and there has been an increase in the number of orphans as a result of the HIV Aids pandemic.
The Domino Foundation is a non-profit organisation that creates essential structures geared to meet the needs of the vulnerable and impoverished in communities. They seek to assist and empower the most needy in communities to pave the way for a brighter future by equipping individuals physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively and spiritually to enable purpose-filled lives. They run The Domino Foundation Babies’ Home; The Domino Foundation Feeding Programme; The Domino Foundation Early Development Programme and The Domino Foundation Life Skills Programme.
Images of distributions in Durban.
(Please note that we have respected the request of the organisations who do not want us to show the faces of some of these children)
Then we have another rather interesting story of how KAS squares and tops were delivered to Durban as part of the “packaging” for a surf board! KAS was contacted by Leanne Wooster in Australia who had a family member coming to South Africa to participate in a surfing competition. Durban is a very popular surfing destination. He offered to pack the squares and tops that Leanne and her mom Alva had made in with his surf board – a great way to protect the fin and a sure way of getting the items to South Africa!!!! After a few back and forward emails, Wendy arranged with Rob and Chantel to meet up with Aron in Durban and collect the items. Imagine their surprise when they were not only given the beautiful squares and eight tops made in Australia, but also a beautiful crocheted blanket from the lady that Aron was staying with in South Africa. It is truly amazing how KAS touches the lives of so many people.
Alva with the squares that were then packed in with the surf board!
It just so happened that Wendy and her husband Peter were down in Durban last week and they were thrilled to be able to spend time with the family sewing the knitted squares sent from Australia into blankets. Rob and Chantel will be distributing these blankets and the knitted tops in the Durban area.
The beautiful blankets made with squares from Leanne and Alva as well as the tops they sent and the other crocheted blanket that was donated to KAS.
I am away in Cape Town at the moment and look forward to letting you know what I have been up to here, but that is news for another report!
Replies
The story about the surfboard was such fun and I look forward to sharing it with others! Such clever people!!
Thank you Ronda...I do love reading about all that is going on. I get tired just reading of all the zipping around that everyone in South Africa is doing but I'm also very delighted by it. I agree conditions can be heart rending but it's awesome that so many people are involved in so many ways. I admit I never EVER thought a surfboard would have anything to do with KAS. What a super idea and how kind of Aron to use the KAS squares for packing---totally makes sense! Every little kindness helps so much.
I love the picture of the crowd of people, all the smiles in that crowd...they are delighted with the hats, that's for sure. What a blessing and privilege to be able to bring smiles and hope and happiness to people a half a world away...it's very humbling and very inspiring. That's a great picture of Rob and Chantel too. I love seeing snaps of the volunteers, they are true earthbound angels. God bless them!
Thank you Ronda. The reach is wide and the arms very long with the hugging.
What a wonderful report! It is great to read about other communities we are able to reach. Every time Pam puts information on the forum from Mama Ntombi's Facebook page, my heart just breaks.
Huge thanks and hugs to Peter for getting things to Durban and Capetown!
While looking for information about Pietermaritzburg on the Internet the other day, I discovered a fairly recent article about the government replacing about 300 of the shacks (I think it was in Jika Joe) with "temporary homes". They sound like they are a step above the shacks the people are living in now, but not meant to be permanent. I think the plan is to eventually replace these with more permanent structures, and it sounded like the temporary houses could be dismantled and moved to another settlement in need. Wendy and Ronda, do you know if this has been started? Are there any similar initiatives around J'burg? Hopefully they will be safer than the shacks currently in use.
Other articles I found made these informal settlements sound rather ominous - I saw a couple of references to "shack lords" but they didn't explain what these were, although it sounded like these people weren't very happy about the temporary homes being built. It almost sounded like some people 'own' several of these shacks and rent them out.. It is awful to think that families might have to pay for the 'privilege' of living in these horrid conditions but I guess they have no choice.
What we are able to do through KAS seems so small when compared to the need, but it is good to know that there are other like-minded people trying to help. I am so glad we are able to 'partner' with them and provide blankets.
Hi Anne
I am replying on Ronda's behalf - this is Wendy. She is really busy because she has her sisters here at the moment. I will look into the shack relocation situation in more detail and send you some information. But, on Tuesday I went to Protea South to do a photo shoot for KAS at the crèche Kidos. While I was there, the council were demolishing and moving shacks. The whole process is aimed at uplifting the various communities and making space to supply basic infrastructure like water and electricity. Julia, the lady that manages Kido was excited by the fact that they were "moving" her school - in her case literally just two metres forward in order to lay electricity cables. Unfortunately , very many families are split from their communities in this process and are often re-located to areas where they may not be with their other community friends and even worse, may be further from any work they may have or what little transport infrastructure they were accustomed to. So, I do think that although the purpose is to upgrade areas, the process may not be that well thought through and horribly disruptive for the families too. One thing that fascinated me is that the families do not appear to be warned in any way and in some instances, like the Protea South move, the shacks and their contents were being moved even if the occupants were not there (they were not actually relocating these particular shacks, but rather moving them back and forward by a few metres). Imagine coming home and your "house has moved a little further down the road? Anyway Anne, these are only my observations - I will look into it in more detail and ask those in the know too!
Thanks for this information, Wendy! I am sure the people must be terribly glad to get infrastructure we take for granted like water and electicity, but I can hardly imagine what it must feel like to have your home (even if it is a humble shack, moved - especially if it is to to a place away from friends and neighbours.
I find this article very interesting, it really brings home what difficult lives some children have. I am a foster carer looking after vulnerable children in the UK, sadly for some of the same reasons outlined in Rondas report. The report just strengthens my resolve to do whatever I can to help. The surf board story is really uplifting, and shows the strength of human resolve and ingenuity!! Anne I also read a report about municipal housing which stated that people relocated to their new homes still have to share toilet facilities, with up to 10 families and often have no electricity. They are also not allowed to trade from the new properties so some are building shacks behind their new homes to trade from and live in, and renting out the new properties!! If this is true who could blame them if the new places are not really catering for their needs. The scale of the problem must be immense and obviously no easy solution