Sponsorship update letter from Botswana
25/06/2008
Child sponsor update from June 2008 from Tlokweng Botswana
SOS Serowe a reality
Thanks to numerous suppporters our dream of a third village is becoming a reality. Thanks to a wonderful team effort, the construction of our Serowe Village is proceeding at a fast pace. To date there are eight completed family houses, a clinic and administration block, a Kindergartenm a Village Director's house, Social Worker's House and a Volunteer House.
Soon to be constructed from 1 July 2008 are three more family houses thanks to the tremendous support from Debswana Donations Fund, Barclays Bank and SOS. Because of all this assistance there are already 70 children in the village.
Winter warmth
As we feel the cold of winter so also we fell the huge support of the community of Botswana, of all racesm nationalities, and religions. We have had great support from a Winter Appeal and express gratitude to all of them.
Family Strengthening Programmes
This is what encourages us in our work and enables us to have over 530 children in our care directly, and over 100 in our Family Strengthening Programmes (FSPs) which are steadily getting off the ground in Tlokweng and Francistown.
In these FSPs we identify granny headed and child headed familes and arrange to take their young memebers into our nursery schools, and we set up contacts to arrange places in other schools for older members.
The FSPs will eventually take over work done by the United States Dept of Labour Reclisa programme which is coming to an end soon. This programme cared for 1100 children exposed to child labour and sexual abuse and was run by SOS Children with support from USDOL, the USA Department of Labour and the American Institute of Research.
Electrification!
After a turbulent start with a number of problematic transformers at our Serowe Village, causing us to struggle for two months without power, we finally have power at our new village. To be without power is difficult when you have taken in 70 children to a village! At last the third transformer is working very well and we appreciate the value and convenience of electricity. We also know that the transformer is big enough for a complete village with over twenty houses in it!
The company BPC has now made wonderful efforts at both our Tlokweng and Francistown villages, where they organised functions at which they educated all the children about power saving, use of Compact Fluorescent Lightsm and indeed they went to the trouble of replacing all our light bulbs! The result is a drop in our electricity bills, a better educated community , and hopefully a realisation that lights are a resource that need to be used judiciously. The Minister of Mines and Mineral Resources, Mr Pontashego Kedikilwe, honoured us with his prescence and telling speech at our function, and his staff went the extra mile to provide T shirts, teach children an 'electric' drama performance and fed us all. Thank you BPC Management and Staff!
Fun for the Children...
School holidays and weekends are a challenge in keeping our children entertained, busy and out of mischief! Our Youth Leaders do a fine job of arranging all forms of fun entertainment. A very popular event held in all the Villages a number of times a year is that of a Fashion and Talent Shows. All the children from the young ones to teenagers take part. Outings from the Villages are always exciting - be it a visit to a nearby shopping mall, the National Stadium for an important soccer match or a trip into nature to visit the Khama Rhinno Sanctuary or the Mokolodi Reserve.
Success Stories
Because of your support, and the fine work done by our staff, particularly the outgoing sponsorship secretary Kathy Ferreira and incoming Agnes Malanda we can now boast of some successes!
We have 10 children at universities, including one BSc Honours Student, one fourth year Law student, and one fifth year Dental student. We have eight student at Maru-a-Pula School on Scholarships. One is a BDF soldier, a policeman, an electrician and a mechanic among our graduates. Ten girls are in the hospitality industry and others are moving into higher positions at various banks and businesses.
Thank you to all!!
Our work is only achieved through the consistent public support - so a huge thank you to you all, be they the individuals who choose to receive our newsletter or the businesses.
There are numerous others who do their but for us and we are most grateful to all of you!
Relevant Countries: Botswana.