Current Funding Needs

Masonwabe Preschool

Funds Needed: $23,000 a year, includes salaries for 3 teachers, a counselor, a health monitor, a cook, daily food for 60 children for 10 months, curriculum, supplies and training.

Status: 75% funded for 2013.

Overview: Masonwabe Preschool operates on the Canzibe Mission, serving 60 children aged 3-6, about 25 percent of whom are orphans or come from vulnerable living situations. The preschool has three classrooms, one teacher in each room.

See video of Masonwabe Preschool in action

Masonwabe Afterschool Care Program

Aftercare students showing off their crosses

Funds Needed: $22,500 for 2013, includes, salaries for four teachers, a counselor, a health monitor, a cook, and a daily meal for 40 children, including school holidays, training and supplies

Status: 75% funded. for 2013

Overview: The after school care program launched in May 2011 at the Canzibe Mission to provide a safe, structured place for children in Grade 1 through Grade 5 after school until 5 p.m. The number of children who attend is capped at 40. The program is designed to provide help with homework and nurture psychological, social, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of the children, most of whom are identified as orphans or living in vulnerable conditions.

Hlalani Kum Learning Center

Artist rendering of The Hlalani Kum Learning Center

Funds Needed: $300,000

Status: 10 percent funded.

Phase I — Site preparation, skills center construction. To begin in early 2013 — $57,000.

Phase II — Construction of 8 aftercare classrooms, two kitchens, two storage rooms, restrooms — $105,800

Phase III — Construction of volunteer accommodations — $114,000

Overview: Both the preschool and the after-school care programs are currently operated out of existing facilities located at Canzibe Mission. We have found a desperate need to expand the aftercare program to more than 40 orphans and vulnerable children. The Hlalani Kum Learning Center will allow us to expand to serve more children. The Learning Center also will allow creation of a central training center for instructors in satellite aftercare programs, establishment of a sexual abuse prevention and resource center for women and children, and the creation of a skills center for young adults who graduate from the aftercare program and other Canzibe residents who will benefit from training as artisans to enable them to gain employment and lead independent lives.

Hamburg Social Development Project

Hamburg community members erected this fence around property slated to be a community center and garden. The fence keeps out animals and other unwanteds.

Funds Needed: $4,000

Status:100% funded

Overview: The Hamburg Social Development Project is a community-based organization whose mission is to improve the lives, especially of children, in the village of Hamburg, South Africa. The current project is to build a fence around 5 hectacres of land slated to house a community center and large garden.

Update: As of December 2012, the fence is complete and HSDP has held several market days, allowing community members to sell food and other goods they have grown and made.

School Uniforms

Total Funds Needed: $35,000 to purchase uniforms for 240 orphans ($146 per student).

Status: 41 percent funded ($14,600). 100 students have new uniforms in 2012.

Goal: Provide uniforms for a total of 240 students in 2013 in the Ngqeleni District. In the entire district, 653 orphans are in need of school uniforms.

Students waiting in line for a new school uniform

Overview: Until very recently, school uniforms were mandatory for students attending government-funded schools in South Africa. In the Eastern Cape, most students still wear uniforms to school. Those students who are too poor to purchase uniforms are ridiculed by their peers and sometimes their teachers. Uniforms cost between $100-$150, a significant amount for families in the Eastern Cape, most of whom are not employed. Some children wear hand-me-down uniforms from older siblings, cousins or neighbors. Many are tattered and worn or ill-fitting. Orphans tend to be stigmatized already in South Africa. If they do not have uniforms, they are targets for even more ridicule.