Education - Trust’s education programme provides help to Bodium Primary School

The primary School in Bodium, the village close to Hamburg, is extremely under resourced. The school has only four teachers for 105 pupils. Grades 1-7 share 4 rooms, while Grade R children are accommodated in the kitchen rondavel.

Thanks to Jane Spriggs, a Johannesburg educator who has a holiday home in Hamburg, the Trust has been able to employ a teaching assistant to assist with the foundation phase classes. Jane turned 60 last year and made a generous donation to the Trust to celebrate the occasion.

The foundation phase teacher, Mrs Mcoseli, reaches retirement age next year. Currently she has to run backwards and forwards between two buildings to teach the children in the lower grades. Andiswa Makubalo started work at the school this month. She will assist Mrs Mcoseli with her daily programme and thereby ensure that there is adequate supervision in each of the “classrooms” for a trial period of six months, with the possibility of extending this to the end of the year..

Staff at the school are dedicated teachers under the leadership of Mr Makapela the school principal and teacher of grades 6 & 7.

The Trust plans to assist the Bodium community with the establishment of an aftercare centre for vulnerable children once the centre at Mgababa has been fully equipped and is running smoothly.

OVC - More about Christmas 2009! Creches Christmas Party

The Presbyterian Church from Port Alfred has taken on Hamburg as their outreach programme, thanks to the connection made by Coleen Driessel who has worked as a bookkeeper for the Trust for 8 1/2 years. Each year a group of ladies from Port Alfred, headed up by Gwen Milne, knit jerseys for the crèche children in Hamburg, Bodium and Ntilini. We received about 120 jerseys this year! If all the jerseys are not handed out to the crèches then they are distributed out at the clinics. In addition, through-out the year clothes are collect by the congregation to be distributed amongst the families of Hamburg and surrounding areas. Once a year a party is hosted by the church for the crèche children over 100 children receive a gift, sweets, cool drink and cake. Many thanks to Coleen and Natalie Renou for organizing the Christmas parties this year.

OVC - Celebrating Christmas!

Once more, this year, Christmas was duly celebrated with the children of Hamburg. Organized by Coleen Driessel and Elnor Leach, the event took place on the 18th of December at the Town Hall .

Both current and former members of the Trust’s staff collaborated to make this event a success. Games were organized by Nokuphiwa Gedze and Derek Oxlee while waiting for Father Christmas. Enormous cakes were sponsored by Elnor Leach and distributed by Natalie Renou and Jackie Downs. About 100 children had great fun, while waiting for Father Christmas who came on his donkey cart to deliver the Christmas presents: dolls sponsored by the Good Gifts charity in the UK and stationery and toys sponsored by Elnor Leach. The dolls – boy dolls for boys and girl dolls for girls – were made by the Keiskamma Art Project’s doll makers. Good Gifts sponsored a total of 455 dolls. The remainder of the dolls will be distributed in the crèches and the Keiskamma Trust OVC Aftercare centres when schools re-open in January 2010.

We thank Coleen Driessel, Colette Tilley, Derek Oxlee, Elnor Leach and her family, Jackie Downs, Natalie Renou, Nokuphiwa Gedze, the Keiskamma Art Project and Good Gifts.