Dear friends

Marie Curie said: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” With more understanding around the COVID-19 pandemic we can adjust, we fear less and we are achieving more.

Since my last newsletter in April 2020, a lot has happened and we have made several adjustments to our services so as to be relevant and still deliver an important service.

Education facilitators were able to distribute schoolwork to children in the community during April. They also supported children with homework where possible. Natalie, our high school facilitator was involved with her high school learners. She did a lot of research to help with homework and assignments.

Mentors and education facilitators helped prepare for the opening of schools. They also covered books for the different teachers.

Our Aftercare and Food Manager, Chantal is working hard juggling between planning meals for the soup kitchens and coordinating the preparations for re-opening of the aftercare.

Roslynn is currently visiting 3 moms in Wilderness Heights and 5 mothers in Touwsranten for the Mamma-Baba programme.

Sheridan visited 4 mothers before she went on maternity leave. Please welcome Jaye to the Seven Passes family. She was born on 15 June 2020.

Jaye-Shonique Sierra Booysen

Parenting facilitators are visiting parents at their homes and are doing individual sessions. We had the following numbers for April, May, and June 2020:

Prente-pret (Book sharing) – 54 participants

Gelukkige Familie Omgeeprogram 2-9 years (Sinovuyo Kids) – 15 participants

Gelukkige Familie Omgeeprogram for Teens (Sinovuyo Teens) – 1 participant

Shila and Linda are also continuing with the Gelukkige Familie Omgeeprogram (2-9 years) on WhatsApp, for parents who attended at Mandalay before lockdown.

Youth Development:

The education facilitators, two staff members and a volunteer finished the LifeLine Personal Development training.  We are proud of them and grateful to LifeLine for providing this training.

Together with a new volunteer, Marius Andrews, mentors are working closely with facilitators to help them set goals and work on self-development strategies. Marius also works with the facilitators on an individual level. We are grateful to have him as part of the team.

We have continued with the food support through the different soup kitchens in the community in collaboration with Hoekwil Rates Payers Association, VGK Church, Die Vleie Dutch Reformed Church and George Municipality. We have received a lot of support from individuals as well as Rotary George who regularly donated food and other supplies. We want to thank everyone who has been part of this initiative. Thousands of people received food since lockdown level 5 was announced in March 2020. A special word of thanks to Laurell Pelser from the Hoekwil Rates Payers Association who was actively involved with the process and offered lots of support and hard work.

We will stop with the food provisions and distributions on 14 August 2020. We will re-open our aftercare for children on Monday 17 August 2020 and will continue to provide food for the children and parents who attend our programmes. George Municipality will continue with the soup kitchens.

We are working on our vegetable garden in an attempt to produce our own vegetables. The vegetable garden was neglected during COVID-19 because our gardener, Oom Klong, is older than 60 and therefore high risk. All staff members work in the garden now. (Some have greener fingers than others 😊)

Hennie and Wilmi weeding the garden

HELP NEEDED PLEASE: 

• We urgently need financial support to fix our Wendy house that was blown over during the storm on Saturday 27 June 2020. 

It will cost us R15 000 to repair it.

• We realise that COVID-19 affected numerous businesses especially restaurants and hotels who traditionally support our organisation’s golf day but if there are any businesses and individuals who can play in and support our golf day in November 2020, we would be so thankful.

FINALLY ……..  Thank you all for being involved and for caring, especially during these difficult times. We thank you for supporting us in our efforts and helping us to grow in the process.

– Wilmi and the Seven Passes Team