AREA PROJECT:-

iZulu Orphan Projects – Ngqamuzana Crisis Support Centre

Proposed:- Empangeni 61

Seconded:- uMhlatuze 261

Letter from Kate Bain from iZulu Orphan Projects

Dear Round Table

I am in full belief of our visions and goals that my late husband, Chadd and I established many years ago. It has been our dream and plans to build our desperately needed Crisis Support Centers closer to our orphans, to replicate the structure we have built on our property with so much more.

We have 5 main areas where our 995 supported children live. These children make up 389 families which cover an area which stretches 25 kilometers wide by 40 kilometers long. We have known families to walk for over 5 hours to get to us! As the families that we support are mainly young children, old grandmothers and sick HIV positive widows, it is absolutely crucial that we move the life-giving support closer to them all.

We have secured 2 out of the necessary 5 sites. We have started on the first site, Ngqamuzana Crisis Support Centre, by erecting the fence poles. We have the fencing to complete this phase. Chadd was a 24-hour emergency service to these families. With his passing, I am no longer in a position to be driving out into the tribal lands after dark to help these desperate and vulnerable families during their crisis situations.

As you can see by the plans, these centers will not only be an immediate place of refuge for orphans but they will also be used for many various upliftment projects, as follows:

  • The Support Centers will be built in our core areas with a caretaker living on site. There will be temporary accommodation for children to run to during a crisis situation. We have not had the desperate need as yet to build cluster homes as we aim at keeping our children within their communities where they grew up with their parents and other family members. As we are witnessing, soon there will not be anymore older family members but with the support we are able to offer through these centers, the children will be able to continue living in their homes, to remain in control of their land which is their only livelihood and inheritance.
  • We will be doing our monthly food parcel and clothing distribution from these centers, lessening the workload of having one central distribution point which, as previously stated, is many kilometers for these families to walk.
  • During our 2009 Annual Orphan Christmas Party, we had real breakthrough in being able to test our families for HIV, Blood Pressure and Diabetes. More than 20% of the people who previously where not interested in getting tested, were HIV positive. Many more suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes. It has been explained to us that blood pressure is the silent killer robbing the lives of our caregivers without them getting any kind of understanding or education on what has been affecting them. Due to this revelation, we are going full steam ahead with weekly testing the communities and offering them education and guidance on these health related matters. We are building clinics within our support centers which will be manned weekly by American doctors from Durban as well as monthly by municipal mobile clinics.
  • Many of the high school children are dropping out of school and with those that persist, only a minimal fraction are passing grade 12. Along with these teenagers and the elderly caregivers, there is no-one in a position to help younger children with homework as well as encouragement to achieve. We will be building media homework centers where children are able to gather after school to get all the assistance they need to be able to achieve their National Senior Certificates. We will be able to guide these children from a young age into further studies and careers appropriate to them.
  • More and more of our orphans are starting to pass grade 12 but there has been a huge lack of options for them as they have no means to funding and support to continue with their education. We have been able to help just a handful of children who have proved to us over the years that they are capable and diligent enough for us to invest in them after schooling. This year, we have a few NPOs, namely ‘I Learn to Live’, ‘ACAT’ and ‘MOTHERS’ coming on board to teach many different skills to our children who have either dropped out of school or who have not had good enough marks to take them on further. We need a venue to teach and mentor these young adults, to give them a hope and chance. These courses will vary from building skills to vegetable tunnels for large quantity vegetable production for wholesale. Our goal is to train up young men to start business within their own communities so that we do not have the males leaving to find work in the larger cities. As we know, this is how HIV spread rapidly in these rural areas when the men would return home after many adventures! We want to encourage family models being rebuilt with males around to discipline younger children and guide young adults, and to lock up their daughters to stop 1000s upon 1000s of teenage pregnancies!!
  • We are also in need of building a facility for the caregivers to have the opportunity to share and produce different crafts. We are waiting to do courses with our caregivers done by Zikulise Community Upliftment Project in Empangeni. We have contacts in the US who are waiting to sell our crafts for fundraising for both our caregivers and Izulu Orphan Projects.
  • We will be building a large demonstration vegetable garden on site teaching our orphans basic agriculture along with providing a meal every afternoon for those in attendance. We have already received the funding for this part of the project by Mondi.

I would really like to thank-you for your time and in considering building one of these centers as a possible Area Project. We are going to achieve even greater things and I am very excited to see it all unfolding.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any further enquiries.

Kind regards

Kate Bain (Mrs)

THE PROPOSAL

Phase One

Construction of the Buildings – Cost R550 000.00

The buildings are completely separate from each other and can be put up one at a time as funding comes available. Setting up of Vegetable Gardens (Funding already obtained)

Phase Two

Fitting the building with computers, furniture ect – Cost R200 000.00

Phase Three

Providing food to ensure that the project is sustainable (2 years) – R240 000.00

This project is crucial to the sustainability of this rural area, for without your support, the project cannot expand and provide the necessary tools to the community to become sustainable.

It is all well and done providing food to them every month, but that solves nothing, This project aims to educate and empower the rural community to a level that they no longer require Government assistance to survive and can start to move up in the world.

Currently only 10% of the family’s iZulu Orphan Projects assist have any form of employment, and those that do are working as Domestic Servants or Security Guards and there monthly salaries are very low. Added to that is the extra burden of supporting their siblings children.

Once the centre is built, various courses will be started in various sectors, from Sewing and Craft Making to Plumbing and Brick Laying.

Remember this all starts with providing food as a Hungry Child cannot Learn, and a Hungry Adult cannot find Work.

We look forward to your support in this venture.

Yours in Table

RJStone

Richard Stone

Project Convenor

+27 82 804 6502