September 2024: We hope you all had a nice and relaxing summer. A lot has happened in our South African projects, which we would like to tell you about today. Thanks to the donations from this year's charity run at Moritzschule Erfurt, we were able to do some good in all four projects and, above all, make the children's eyes light up.
For Nelson Mandela Day on July 18, 2024, the team of the feeding project prepared something very special for the children and gave each of them their own gym bag full of lovely surprises. The contents varied according to age group and included toiletries, pants, tops, hats, pens and colouring books. The kids were delighted!
The renovation of the playgrounds and trampolines at the children's home has begun. The children also received nice winter clothes and new shoes for school. Every month, the home organizes a fantastic party for the birthday children - with delicious cakes, balloons, presents, music and lots of fun. The pictures speak for themselves. By the way, the Greytown children's home now also has its own homepage, please take a look: https://greytownchildrenshome.org.za/.
In the village project, further renovation work is planned at the preschools, including the construction of sanitary facilities at one school. Project manager Paul and his dedicated team of volunteers also involve young people from the region, who help them with the construction work or distributing food parcels. This provides an insight into life in the countryside and the sometimes adverse circumstances, as the gap between rich and poor in South Africa is still very wide even 30 years after the end of apartheid. In July, as part of a project day organized by the church congregations in Keates Drift and in cooperation with the Dutch Reformed Church from Greytown, great handicraft activities for children and courses for women were held. There was also a small puppet show, which was very well received by the children.
In our township project, we equipped a small kindergarden with mattresses, chairs, blankets and learning materials. The children previously had to take a nap on the bare floor. The new mattress dormitory is now much more comfortable and protects them from the cold floor and infections, especially in the winter months. Another major project in the township was the procurement of large rainwater tanks. Imagine cooking, washing up, doing the laundry, going to the toilet, showering or watering the garden without running water ... unfortunately, this is often part of everyday life for the families in the township, as they usually have no direct access to water and electricity in their huts. We were able to provide 10 families with 1'000 liter water tanks each, which are already being used. This enables them to optimally irrigate the salads and vegetables, for which we provide seeds, and also support the neighbours with water. A candle recently caused a fire in a hut in the township - fortunately no one was injured. We are providing the affected family with new mattresses, school uniforms and school books.
As part of the 103rd “Katholikentag” in Erfurt (May 29 to June 2, 2024), coffee rosters sold delicious coffee, cakes and snacks donated by the school community in the café in the dining hall of the Edith Stein School. With many helping hands, the café was a complete success and visitors enjoyed coming by to relax and feast between the supporting program of the Katholikentag. The profits from the sales were donated to our organization - a magnificent EUR 6’500. A symbolic cheque was ceremoniously presented to our chairwoman Juliane and treasurer Annemarie by Mrs Rein, teacher at the school and main organizer of the café. Once again, we would like to say a big thank you for this great campaign - simply fantastic! We want to use the money primarily for the children in our four aid projects, including for a beautiful playground at the new preschool in the village project.
By the way, all the leftover cakes that could not be sold during the day were taken to the Caritas day center and the “Erfurter Brücke” youth center in the late afternoon, where there were grateful takers. You can find some pictures of the Katholikentag on the school homepage (https://www.ess-erfurt.de/edith-stein-schule-auf-dem-katholikentag/).
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