Children's Report - August 2007
Our children are all well and happy and growing like mushrooms. We have been fortunate to have had a volunteer teacher, Jean-Luc from New York, who has assisted the children in catching up on most of the school-work that they lost through the teacher's strike.
At the moment we have another two volunteers at home who are doing specific skills projects with the children and helping those who have problems in certain areas of their school work.
Diana is in her element being the "mother" to all the children and she is a brilliant Children's Home Supervisor. The staff have been given extra training by Diana and the team spirit is good.
Janine is doing a sterling job of managing the administration, dealing with the public and has become quite an expert at the Child Care Act. Nothing seems to get past her, not even an un-crossed "T" on a children's court order.
The micro-bus that Chris de Beer donated to the home has been a godsend, especially with the winters in Middelburg. It was a mad scramble for Diana to get a Public Driving Permit and now the children no longer have to walk to school and back again in bad weather.
We are extremely fortunate in that we always have at least three or four overseas child care volunteers at any one time at the home who supplement the staff and add to the quality care given to the children. Often, we have as many as six volunteers. These means that the children are kept busy, occupied and are always learning new skills. Unlike other NGO's, we do not expect volunteers to pay for their experience, and this ensures that we have a steady stream of volunteers. However, the volunteers do come with police clearances, previous experience and are given orientation in Cape Town before arriving in Middelburg.
I have received the most beautiful individual letters from the children. I write to them often, but my letters to them are collective letters to all of them. I will now have to write to each and every child. What a job this is going to be as each of them have different questions for me. Their letters broke my heart, some of them asking me to come home just for a day. At the moment this is impossible as I still have a lot of work to do here.
Thank you for you continual support of our work and for your support of our
children. With love
Dianne, Janine, Diana, the staff and the children.