Would you like to help me out??

Since three months I am supporting a teener mom. She lives nearby where we live in a township. She has no contact with her family and is living alone with her little son. She is still at school and does not have a job. Within the community they help each other but some times that is not enough. I desided to help her out and she is willing to work for it. She does some beatwork she makes little dolls out of beats. For the ones that do not know beatwork I add some pictures. She makes the dolls on a pin and I would like to sell them for her overseas. So if you think you can help me out with selling them please let me know. This way she can make her own money. You can sell the pins for 2,50€ or 3€ and maybe sell 2 pins for 5€. But it´s up to you....If you are able to help us out selling them, just send me your home address and the amount of pins you would like to receive. I will mail them to you and all the money you receive you can transfer it to my bank account wich I will include in the parcel. You do not have to pay in advance you only transfer what you sell. The pin comes with a little card, thanking the buyer for the purchase, it´s in three languages Dutch, English and Spanish.

Thank you so much in advance,

Lilian, Nosipho and Andile

Next step.......

Now we have the house ready I would like to share some photos with you. Also I would like to tell you that we started with the 2nd boy. He is staying with us now for the weekends. He comes friday´s after school and stays with us untill the monday morning. As I told you we have to take things slowely. He will have to adjust, and we also. Untill now he is doing great. He really enjoys it and we enjoy his company. In the future we would like the boys to introduce themselfs to you by having their own weblog where they can tell you what is going on in their lives and ofcourse how they are doing in the house but it´s up to them if they want it. I will discuss this with them when I get back from Spain. At the moment I am for one week in Madrid I will be back on the 8th of April. Tessa my friend is taking care of them these days.

Our House:

The House

The pets

The garden

First boy room still needs a bunkbed

Second boys room also needs 2 bunk beds

Boys bathroom

Kitchen

Living and diner room

Tessa´s and Lilian´s

Nieuw project.....mooie veranderingen (English version below)

Hallo allemaal,

Het is lang geleden!!!! Mijn weblog werkte niet goed door problemen met internet.
Het is druk geweest, veel veranderingen maar ik voel me super.

Ik wil jullie vertellen over mijn nieuwe project. Sinds oktober heb ik een tiener in huis omdat hij geen goed thuis had.Tijdens deze periode ben ik er achter gekomen dat er veel tieners zijn zonder een goed thuis. Ouders willen niet voor ze zorgen, de familie doet er niks aan en ze zijn niet instaat om voor zichzelf te zorgen.
Ze kunnen nog niet full time werken omdat ze hun school niet hebben afgemaakt en dus nog niet opzichzelf kunnen wonen.
Gelukkig met hulp van een vriendin en een buitenlandse organisatie kunnen 5 tieners weer naar school.
Ze zitten in hun laatste twee jaar voordat ze hun middelbare school diploma hebben.
Het was nogal een probleem om ze naar school te krijgen want ze zijn "te oud". Maar nu zijn ze erg blij weer terug te zijn en de school heeft ze ook met open armen opgevangen.
Nu de volgende stap is een paar van hen te helpen met een huis situatie. Zonder een goeie huis familie situatie zal het een moeilijkheid zijn om naar school te blijven gaan. Ik heb besloten met een vriendin (zij woont al 4 jaar in Zuid Afrika) een groter huis te huren waar we verblijf aan 6 jongens kunnen bieden. We kennen de jongens al en ze willen heel graag bij ons komen wonen. Al weten ze dat we huis regels zullen hebben. We zullen het stap voor stap moeten doen. We zullen ze 1 voor 1 in huis nemen om te zien hoe het gaat. De eerste tiener woont al bij ons en doet het heel goed.

Natuurlijk is het een hele uitdaging financieel gezien. 6 tieners zijn al een uitdaging......maar we zijn bereid om het te proberen omdat ze het waard zijn........ Natuurlijk kunnen we het niet met z´n tweetjes financieren en willen we vrienden en familie om hulp vragen.

Spullen die we nodig heben voordat de jongens komen:

1 Grote koelkast 250€
4 Gordijnen 85€
3 Stapel bedden 450€
12 Handdoeken 40€
12 Lakens 70€
12 Dekbed hoezen 100€

We hebben onze eigen meubels en keukenspullen, dit bij elkaar is genoeg voor ons allemaal

De vaste kosten per maand:
Huur 500€
Water electriciteit100€

Andere onkosten per maand

Boodschappen 400€
Kleding 25€ (spaarpot)
Medische kosten 30€ (spaarpot)

We zouden graag willen weten of jullie ons kunnen helpen met een maandelijks bedrag.........of eenmalige bijdragen. Alles is welkom en met jullie hulp zal het een succes worden.
Als je geintereseerd bent laat het me via email weten dan stuur ik de bank gegevens door.
Jullie hulp word zeer gewaardeerd,

My new project...beautiful changes

Hello to you all,
It has been a very long time !!!!! My weblog did not work well as I had some internet problems.
It has been busy, a lot of changes but I feel very good.

I would like to tell you about my new project. Since October I have been having a teen(er) boy in my house as he had no good place to stay.
During this time I noticed that there are a lot of teen(er) boys with bad house situations. Parents do not want to take care of them, the family does not do anything and they have to take care of theirself.
They can't have full time jobs as they did not finish school. It is very important that they first finish high school before they can be independent.

Luckily with help of my Dutch friend and an overseas foundation/organization we were able to send 5 teen(er) boys back to school. They are doing grade 11 which means only two more years. This has been very difficult as they are already "too old" to go back to school. But now they are very happy to have this change and the school was happy to have them.

Now the next step is providing, for some of them, a family house situation. Without a good family house situation it will be a big challenge to finish school. I decided with a friend (she lived here already for 4 years) to rent a bigger house where we can have in total 6 boys. We know the boys already and they are very happy to come and live with us. Although they know that we will have some rules. We will have to do it by steps. We will take them one by one to see how it goes. The first teen(er) boy is already living in the house and is doing very well.
Of course financially it will be a big challenge. 6 teen(er) boys is a challenge...but we are willing to give it a try because they deserve it.......of course we can not do this on our own so we would like to ask our friends and family for financial support.

The things we need to buy before more boys come in to the house:
1 Big Fridge 250€
4 Curtains 85€
3 Bunk beds 450€
12 Towels 40€
12 Sheets 70€
12 Bed Covers 100€

We have already furniture and kitchen supplies as we are using our stuff together.

Then we will have every month fixed cost:
Rent 500€
Water Electricity 100€ and some irregular costs (estimated) per month
Grossery 400€
clothing 25€ (will be safed)
medical 30€ (will be safed)
We would like to know if you can help us out with a monthly support ........or an onetime amount. Everything is welcome and with your help we can make it work.
Please if you are interested to help us out send me an email and I will give you the bank details.

Your help is very much appreciated,

The house is finished

Just want to share with you some photos from my friend. She has been building her house with help from some friends. She prepared some bricks herself and had some financial help from Holland. They helped her with details for the house. She is very proud of the house although for her it is not finished yet as she wants to make two rooms more. But for now she can live in the house and enoy her own property. We spend X-mas at her place. It was very special, my mom really enjoyed it

Yes I am still here

Hello everyone,

I have not been updating a lot lately on my weblog. I am very sorry. It´s not that nothing happened because a lot happened.

When I got back from spain the spanish girls came over. It was great having them around. We did a lot of things with them. You can read their experience at http://www.proyectosawubona.es/ (spanish) Also my mom is here. She has been working very hard. She loves the country as much as I do. But in two weeks she will be going back after three months and that will be very difficult for her.

In these three months a lot happened we had some fun experiences and sad ones.

We had another visitor Henk-Jan from Holland he joined us with our daily activities.

You can read his stories at his site http://www.thalente.nl/ (dutch)

The big sad thing that happened is a tornado passing one of the townships we work. It was on a friday in November. I was sick and sleeping on the couch when out site it just turned black like the night. My mom could see the tornado coming but I could not move. In the afternoon I received a call from my collegues that it was a disaster. They had never seen anything like it. You can read about it on our website http://www.khulanisimunye.org/English/Body_Eng.html (english).

Me and my mom helped out with the sorting all the donations that came from everywhere.

I did not go to the township because I was to afraid to see all the missery that a tornado left in 7 minutes. We did go to the funeral of the 8 people that died and it was my first time to see the houses destroyed. It was horrible and it made me sad.

Now the goverment is trying to help the people getting their lives together but it goes very slow.

Also last week they had another disaster, the place where a lot of people where based after the tornado, the youth centre got burned down. It is realy not fair having so many terrible things happening to a town that already lives in a challenging situation. The story just goes on..............

Update

I am back !!!! I was for a week in Madrid which I enjoyed very much. I have seen a lot of my friends. Was good to be back for a week.

Just before I left I did the last english course. We do it in blocks of six weeks. We made it a special course. We did games, educational games, and we danced. Just have a look at the pictures and you will see. Coming saturday we will start with the next block of six weeks.

While I was away we received our official registration number. So we can start looking for sponsors and registrate us on different kind of official websites.

The coming two weeks my friend Sonsoles is here with her friends, the girls created Proyecto Sawubona http://www.proyectosawubona.es/ They support us from Spain. Also my mom has joined and she, like me, already loves the people and the country.

This week we will promote the STAND UP TAKE ACTION please have a look at their website and maybe you can help as well. http://www.standagainstpoverty.org/
Join millions worldwide to STAND UP and TAKE ACTION against Poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals. Last year, over 43 million people Stood Up to demand that world leaders keep their promises to end poverty and inequality. We will be doing it on Friday at a Youth Center in Molweni, Saturday at a Lounge of a new organisation and Sunday, if the weather is not to bad, at our garden meeting.

Also this week our important aim is to help people to get their official documents, IDBOOKS, Birth certificates etc. As for one time this week on Friday the political part ANC organisted for the community a social worker who is coming to the community. This is much better for a lot of people as normally they have to travel (cost money) to get to the social welfare office. We try to make sure the people have the right documentation before Friday.

Well it´s another intresting week in this country. I feel good and I am ready for anything.