Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
Community
The fee paid by our volunteers are put directly back into the project and are used to buy building materials such as paint, flooring, fencing, paints, etc to rebuild this very rundown school. The fee also makes it possible for us to pay the salary of the Red Hill Township pre-schools teacher and cook which contributes to local economic development and ensures people in the surrounding area have a sustainable income. The project also uses a portion of fees to contribute to the wages of the sports coach at the local primary school which we work alongside.
We aim to employ as many local people as possible and the abovementioned teacher, cook and sport coach are all local South Africans, from within the townships where we work. Our volunteer coordinator is a local South African as well. The cook and cleaner at our volunteer house are a Zimbabwean couple, who came to South Africa in search of better opportunities due to the Zimbabwean economic and political climate and they support their family in Zimbabwe by working with us here in Cape Town.
During our volunteer’s orientation we give them the chance to experience a traditional Xhosa meal and a local Xhosa woman living in the Red Hill Township prepares this for us. We provide all the food for the meal as well as enough food for her and her family to share in the meal with us. Any leftover ingredients or food are hers to keep and we also provide her with electricity.
We have also initiated a 'Sponsor a Child' program in the Red Hill Pre-schools and have managed to get 50 out of the 75 children sponsored in one year. As most parents do not work or have very little income they are unable to afford the fees to send their children to school. This sponsorship has secured a full years education and 2 meals a day for the sponsored child, which is often the only food that child will receive.
We have also recently funded a container in Red Hill Township which was requested by the community to have as a resource centre. We have set up a small library in the container and have been donated a computer for the community to make use of. Over the next few months we hope to make this a centre for the local people to come to for information, books, and internet access where they can look for jobs and we can assist with creating C.V.’s, thereby creating sustainability within the community. We also hope to start an afternoon activity centre for the primary school aged children within the community as they have no access to any other services in the community.
Environment
At our volunteer house we recycle paper, glass, tins, cardboard and plastic. We try to minimise the amount of plastic bags we need to purchase and use material bags for our grocery shops. We use all plastic containers that once contained food items such as ice-cream containers for storage or plastic bottles for making musical shakers. We also save toilet paper rolls, egg cartons and any other useful material for craft activities at the pre-school. Volunteers are also made aware of water and electricity wastage during orientation and that they minimise their time in the shower and use of electricity.
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