Archive for category: Uncategorized (Page 6)

About 30 We are Durban volunteers joined us on Saturday 28^th September for very special day with 6 very special children at the Baby Hope House in Pinetown. Sonia & Lynne, who are very close friends, have shared a dream to have a children’s’ home for about 15 years and finally managed to start it up in 2007.

They gave us a tour of the house and then we split into three teams to learn about various aspects of a baby home. The one topic covered baby care: how to feed, burp and change nappies, the other topic was about the home, the children, the social workers and their success stories, and the third topic was covered by a Canadian couple who were in SA adopting their child and they discussed the in’s and out’s of adoption in SA.

It was an exciting but equally sad morning realizing how desperate and vulnerable so many children in our country are. The volunteers were encouraged to come back and commit some time to loving the children, assisting with bathing, feeding, nappy changing etc. They rely hugely on volunteers to be the extra set of hands on a daily basis and on help from their volunteers to raise funds for their home.

If you would like to get involved with a home, please feel free to get in touch with us.

Olive Tree Church enlisted We are Durban to run their annual mission trip. They had a fantastic turn out with 180 people coming out to make a difference in the community of Wangu. Wangu is a community 100km up the N2 from Durban.  We are Durban has been involved in the community of Wangu for 5 years through an organisation called Impendulo.  The involvement in this rural community keeps our focus clear in Durban.  This community has been ravaged by the effects of poor schooling, and lack of business opportunities which has resulted in a void in adults.  People of working age flock to the cities to seek a “better” future, which is often not a reality. This leaves only the young , sick and elderly in the community.  This is not a great model we want to build our country on.

Olive Tree Church hit a few key areas in the community.  They helped out the matrics, started a business, aided in the community veggie garden, helped the Health Department, did kids ministry and door to door ministry.

The matric students of the local school came in on the public holiday and Saturday to attend extra lessons with the teachers and school leavers from Olive Tree Church. They ran through past papers to help them get a feel for what is going to be required to get them through at the end of the year.

One of the community members had come to the Impendulo team requesting assistance in starting a chicken rearing business. Through contacts with people in the industry this was made a reality for this gentleman. The building team from Olive Tree Church erected a chicken coop on the man’s property for his business. Build-it in Pinetown provided the building materials, which cost a massive R20,000! Thank you Freese Build-it!  The man was trained on how to run a business and set up for success with buyers and suppliers.

The community veggie garden has been enhanced with an irrigation system thanks to the gardening team.  The layout of the veggies was also changed so that there is optimal positioning for growth of the plants.

Allied Health professionals were assisted by the Community social workers as they went out collecting data to aid the Health department in their planning for the future.  The partnership has been hailed as a success by the Department of Health as it is the first signs of private-Government partnership in the area.

About 200 kids came out to the field to attend kids club. The activities were a great success. Each child returned home with their very own t-shirt and cap, which they had painted themselves.  Busyballers supplied a beautiful jumping castle which kept the kids busy between activities.  Well done to the team for showering the children with so much love.

The door to door team literally went from house to house with the Impendulo team looking for the sick and injured to pray for their healing in Jesus name.  They saw blind people receive their sight, deaf ears hear, disabled people walk, and many pains and aches disappear after prayer.

Well done Olive Tree Church for engaging with the community and trying to set change in motion in our time!

After 3 years of working on the Qalakahle ECD Centre project we were very excited to finally reach the point where we could have the ground breaking ceremony. Afrisun KZN community development trust was our host of the event and our largest sponsor toward building the facility.

Three years ago the Creche was sent a letter by Health Department for it to shut its doors.  iTrump stepped in and enlisted help to prevent it as the crèche is seen as an essential service to the Mansel Market area.  We are Durban was contacted and since then been involved in maintenance, and providing nutritious food for the children to eat. They also started contacting people to fundraise for an entirely new facility to be built.  Ocean Architects came on board, providing plans and contacts within the industry to provide for the various requirements in building the facility. Headway Pre-Primary raised R80,000 which started our capital search to fund the rest of the building.

Afrisun finalised the deal by pledging R1million towards the building.

The event, which was held on Friday 16 August 2013, was attended by First Lady Madame Thobeka Zuma and Counsellor Logie Naidoo.  Presentations were done of the facility by Michelle Quarmby of Ocean Architects and the Histroy by Hoosen Moolla.  The children lead the charge on singing the National Anthem and Zulu Dancers entertained guests while press interviews were conducted.

Overall it was a great celebration of what happens when government, private companies and non-profit organisations work together.  We look forward to a Christmas time Opening ceremony.

There are not many words to describe how this Dance Workshop impacted my life! Day 1 saw just over 200 children flood into the Gandhi Settlement Hall, a National Tourism site in the middle of Bhambayi township, with its well furnished and looked after facilities we really could not have asked for a better venue to host our dance program. With a handful of loyal and faithful volunteers we attacked the first day with courage, hope and love. This day was made up of some warm up classes, a session which encouraged the kiddies to make up their own dance moves, lunch, a dynamic speaker and then we gave a few of the local children the opportunity to show us their dance moves. Wow, the talent within this community is incredible. Some of the highlights of Day 1 included welcoming +200 eager children to our workshop and then seeing about half of them give their lives to Jesus! Each volunteer had the same goal in mind, lets try and show these kiddies the perfect, kind, forgiving and crazy love of God.

Day 2 saw around 100 children arriving early but kiddies seemed to join us all morning until we had a total of +-200 by lunch time. Part of our workshop was to teach the kiddies a very simple but fun dance routine that on Day 3 they could perform for an audience. This dance was received well by the kids and we enjoyed learning the dance piece together. We invited a ballet teacher to show some Ballet and we were also blessed to have a very talented African dance group join the workshop with us on Day 2. The kiddies thoroughly enjoyed watching this African group perform and they learned much from them. By day 2 a group of young boys, aged between 6-9 years captured my heart. It was very clear that they had a strong leader in their group, Andile. Over Day 2 and Day 3 we took the opportunity to speak into these boys lives, declaring Gods leadership over them, encouraging them to grow into men of character. One of my highlights of Day 2 was when these boys approached me after the day had ended and asked if I would be their leader. We had another wonderful message spoken with the kids and approximately 80 children gave their lives to Jesus this day. Within this group was a little girl named Wendy, who has stolen a piece of all our hearts! It was so amazing to see a complete personal and physical transformation over Wendy! For the next two days Wendy could not stop hugging us volunteers and she came to sit on my lap at least four times. There were so many kiddies who grabbed our attention, beautiful children made in the image of our God.

Day 3 you could just feel Gods spirit hovering over the entire area and His peace was over the whole day. We enjoyed the company of another amazing dance group who taught the kiddies some very cool hip hop moves. The morning spent with this group was loads of fun. We enjoyed watching different groups of children perform a short hip hop routine and they were all well done. We again had around 200 kiddies join us. We enjoyed worshipping God with dance while the children were eating their lunch and with songs playing like “let it rain” it was so clear that God was with us, moving his spirit. Wendy was dancing around giving us all hugs and filling us with a sense of hope. We prepared for our dance performance and got the children dressed up in some dance cloths and put some make up on for the girls and gave all the boys warrior face paint. We had a small audience arrive and started the show, what fun was had by everyone. My highlight on Day 3 was just being there with the children for one more day, telling them that they are special, never to give up hope, build character, practice hard and pray to God. I have to mention that on Day 1 and Day 2 we had Bongani join us, he arrived on Thursday morning, doing something in the area and didn’t leave until the end of Friday! Bongani is the President of the Traditional Healers Association! When I met him he couldn’t stop thanking me for what we were doing. On Day 2 we had four Tourists visiting the site come and watch a bit of the workshop and one of them is the President of a University in America. He is doing some research in SA about young men and exchanged numbers with one of the volunteers. This man is also a Pastor of a Church in America. How great is our God! There are so many stories I could share with you. I am changed forever and looking forward to doing this again.

Jade Ribeiro

durbancitycelebration@gmail.com

Congratulations to the LIV-village team for officially winning the potjie compo, unofficially well done to the Katy, Kyle, Chris and Nicci team (sorry if I left any team members off there) who, according to the judges, definitely had the best potjie but it was ready too late to be judged!

What a glorious day.  The weather was perfect, the scenery was lovely and the company was the best! Isaiah House, is based in the bottom of the Molweni valley and is looking at community development within the area.  They are looking at the community as a whole – spiritual, social, emotional, physical – and trying to empower the members to overcome their poverty.  Sandile and Abby (founders of Isaiah House) are doing a fantastic job of empowering people and changing mindsets and perceptions.

Isaiah House has recently been donated bread ovens to start an income generating project at the centre. To showcase the potential of these ovens, We are Durban ran a bread-making day and potjie competition this past Saturday, 27 April 2013. People were invited to enter teams, make their potjie and at the end we fed the community – bread and potjie.  It was an incredible time connecting with these very special people.

Thank you to everyone who participated, everyone who burnt their clutches getting there and back, to those who did the scenic route in getting there, and to those who helped Dave get out.  But the biggest thanks goes to those who got out of their comfort zones and connected with those in need, and gave love to the lonely! Well done everyone!

(Photos will be added shortly)