With us in South Africa, the winter has already arrived: we had the first frost and sensitive cold temperatures during the day; if it is here under 20 °C despite the bright blue sky, then one knows that it is winter.
In this blog I will report from all areas of the Tsibogang work. At the beginning of May, we had our Annual general meeting of Tsibogang. Dr Hermann announced a savings program for the next months. It looks inter alia. That the food allowance for all kindergartens and after school programs will be halved and there will be no food for the meetings of the staff. This was accepted by members sympathetically or can be said that no one has protested. In the meantime, there have been some good news: Bingo Lotto Niedersachsen, the environmental lottery, has promised a donation and the Baden Lutheran Church. This is an answer to many prayers. Thank you to all who have prayed for it.
The five women who are doing the Montessori course are now in the active exam phase. They meet every Saturday. The five areas in which they are examined are exercises of Practical life, language, mathematics, culture. Each of them must know about 120 different exercises and be able to present them to the children. In the Montessori course , the rule is that every one should have practiced the exercises about 30 times before they are shown to a child.
In the two preschools it is at least noticeable that there is progress in the children. There are a few children, who work very independently and use the material sovereignly. Some have begun to write. When I come to the centers (every other week), I am always amazed at how interested the youngest children are when I give older children the language material. Writing has something magical for the children.
On the 1st / 2nd August will be the examinations of the Montessoricourse, from 7.8. Women will begin to officially begin their Teaching Practice. That is, each of them must show that they can also apply the theoretical knowledge practically.
In May there were four HIV testing campaigns, in which three of our members tested 396 people for HIV. This is important for the general work in our NGO, as well as for general health awareness. There are still many who do not know their HIV status. One reason for this is the fear of being exposed in a hospital (called clinic). Some people fear the stigmatization of others. The South Catholic Bishops’ Conference is giving us funds for these test campaigns, we are using the niche of our NGO to give people the opportunity to get tested. In this way, we have already picked up on a number of children who are HIV positive.
In the past three weeks, there have been a lot of rumors in Mafikeng at several schools that two cars were seen in primary schools that wanted to kidnap children. Our two After school programs in Mafikeng were directly affected by this: The children did not go to school because of these rumors. Parents came to us to find out what we heard about it. Today, nobody knows whether children really disappeared. But the organization “Missing Children” reports on their website:
The Shocking Reality
A child goes missing every five hours in South Africa, according to figures released by the South African Police Service Missing Persons Bureau for 2013. This adds up to a total of 1697 children. Fortunately, according to Missing Children South Africa’s statistics, 77% of children are found. Sadly, this still leaves us with at least 23% of the children not being located. Trafficking in children is a global problem affecting large numbers of children. According to UNICEF and World Concern some estimates have as many as 1.2 million children begin trafficked every year. “Children and their families are often unaware of the dangers of trafficking, believing that better employment and lives lie in other countries.” The reality is shocking and undeniable – there is a tremendous demand for children to be traded into forced (cheap) labour or for sexual exploitation.
That’s enough to see how serious this matter is. The government has begun to give child protection sessions in schools to warn children. Our work in Tsibogang where we are trying to help the children of South Africa is also meant to protect them from all kinds of evil and abuse.
Christel Hermann