GIMMEEEE!!!!!!

May 11 2012

Donation list:

So, my mom will be here at the end of June (HOLLER!) and I figure this is a perfect opportunity for her to bring stuff to my site that people want to donate. Over the last year a lot of people have asked how they can help- and now is the time! J

As most of you know at my last site my most exciting and successful program was a girls club. Because an after school program focusing on health education, female empowerment, HIV prevention, and decrease in risky behaviour is in great need and is something I can do as a secondary project, I have started a new girls club but also expand it to two separate age groups, both from the secondary school. This means I need more supplies and ideas for activities.

Groups will meet once per week for about 2 hours and lessons will vary with a main emphasis on HIV education/prevention and female empowerment. I found the girls loved doing any type of arts & craft, and the first time they used paint was beyond exciting! Arts and crafts allowed for lessons to be fun and interactive, and let the girls express themselves, when they would otherwise be very boring.

The first week of September four other PCVs and I are hosting a camp for the girls, each of us will bring about 8 girls for a week full of awesomeness.

MONEY!

Money is not always exciting to give, but it is the best and easiest way you can help. The money you donate will go directly to funding a girl from my community to go to camp. This is also a great option for those of you who are not in Michigan and wouldn’t be able to get supplies to my mom.

How to donate: That is a great question, I am in the process of setting up a account on PayPal where you can directly donate using debit or credit… but that is not ready yet. All money donated will go directly to sponsoring a girl for the Camp. More details to come J

Arts & Crafts

·         Tie die (for 60 shirts)

·         Paper

·         Paint

·         Paint brushes

·         Old magazines

·         Crayons/markers/coloured pencils

·         Colouring books

·         Beads/jewellery making tools/materials

School supplies

·         Notebooks

·         Pencils

·         Pens

·         Erasers

Office supplies

·         Pens

·         Permanent markers

Books

·         Kindergarten – grade 12 (English as a second language)

·         And material to help teach English and reading

Garden

·         Seeds (cabbage, beetroot, green beans, green pepper, any legume, onion, spinach, carrots)

Toothbrushes/toothpaste

·         Any and all will help!

Shirts/screen print

·         This would be for the camp; we want to have t shirts made for the participants. If anyone has the hook up with getting shirts and/or screen printing donated or discounted we could have them made at home- and when I visit home in September I would get them and bring them back. It would be about 50 shirts with screen prints, so in order to make the transport worth it I would need it to be cheap cheap (ei, free or significantly discounted).

Other stuff (this may or may not be just for me…sorry for not sorry)

·         Crystal light/drink mixes (esp gatorade/powerade)

·         Coffee (I got a French press! So I can have real coffee!)

·         Healthy protein-ish bars (luna, cliff, mojo)

·         New music

·         American-ish candy to share with my families

·         T-shirts/baseball caps that are anything American (sport teams/universities) to give host families (3 babies, 2 ten yr old boys, 15 yr old boy, 15 yr old girl, 2 10-12 ish girls, 1 old man, 3 women 30-60)

·         Games, cards/board games, but would need to be small for travel purposes

Most of these supplies will be for children at the Drop In Centre (DIC), there are about 60 kids ages 5-18. I would use these supplies for the office, the DIC, and my girls clubs. If you have a preference of what your donation is for please let me know and I will do my best to respect your wishes.

All is well here! Just got back from an amazing vacation with Krystle and excited to be back at work! :) Any and all help will help!! Please look forward to more specific updates!

peace

sami

“It’s like being 16 all over again, but smarter”

I have had my new site all to myself for a while now, I would say I am all unpacked and organized in my new home but anyone who really knows me would be correct in saying that is a big fat lie. Whatever, I am pretty much unpacked, it’s just the whole ‘organized’ part that I will never really be.

The ball is starting to roll at work, I am continually learning about the org so I can figure out what the hell I am going to do. I have a lot of ideas and thoughts, but like my room, they are not entirely organized- and I need some type of shelving to figure out how to make everything work. The biggest project, which will also be the most complicated, will be making the DIC (Drop In Centre) function. Right now there are several women who come and cook for the kids… when there is food. When there is no food, which unfortunately is semi often the kids do not come. We are currently receiving some funding from AFSA (AIDS Foundation South Africa) which pays for the food and some other things, but the food is not being managed well and runs out before the end of the month. So, first things first, I made a food tracking log and so we’ll be able to gauge if we are cooking too much in a day, legitimately do not have enough food, or if it is mysteriously walking away from the centre. Well that food chart hasn’t been filled out all month, so I talked with the manager again and he said he’ll make sure with this incoming batch of food the cooks track the food.

GARDENING!!! The org has a decent amount of land, two Gogo’s in charge of the gardens, and secure water. What we don’t have: seeds. Oh yea, and the little that does grow somehow never makes it to the kitchen, and the little that is sold- well money never makes it to the financial manager. So there is some serious work to do there. I am excited because I think I can get some seeds from the Dept of Agriculture, and I met a funder who will donate up to 20,000 rand in supplies from a builders warehouse place so I am pumped to get started on all that fun stuff. I plan to do a couple workshops/hands on sessions about composting and different gardening techniques to increase yield and save on water. I feel a bit apprehensive because my plan is to completely change the way they garden, so there will be obvious complications. I think I might leave one plot to the Gogo’s to do what they normally do, then do one plot my way and see what happens. Hopefully the veggies in the new garden will be better and I won’t have to do much convincing. Considering they have been using the same soil with little to no fertilizer for a long time I think it’s safe to assume there will be differences. We are currently saving material for the compost we will start next of next week, and after we have seeds and the donations it is GAME TIME! Now that I know we will be getting funding I am pretty pumped to start the garden project and hoping it will expand to having sustainable gardens at other community organizations and schools- so I am treating my first attempt as a trial run.

I am still pretty intimidated and apprehensive on the whole drop in centre front. There are no caregivers to work with the kids and no one really seems to be in charge. I need to find a magic wand, possibly one with a unicorn hair, because we are gonna need a LOT of money and committed staff, and in my experience it is hard to depend on others unless the money is flowing.

I was hoping I would have a bit more direction at this point. I don’t really like working by myself or feeling like I am forcing people to do things they probably don’t want to. It gets rather exhausting trying to brainstorm ideas when everyone around you is looking for a better job. It is a weird feeling being a month into this site being mine, but having been here a year. Sean, the PCV who I share a shopping town with put a very positive spin on it that “it’s like being 16 all over again, but smarter”. It’s true. Getting a second chance, a do over- to go back and be 16 but with more wisdom and insight. So that’s the cool part. But that crap part is getting projects started and feeling productive. I feel like projects are ABOUT ready to start and I am way anxious, I am about to be busy with fun stuff but what I’m busy with right now is all the boring stuff. But since I am getting ‘to be 16 all over again, but smarter’ I knew I had to get the ball rolling on at least one project that I would enjoy and would keep me busy that I could do by myself, so when other people drag their feet or get busy with something else, I can be productive. For me that is working with the teens and building a compost. HOLLER!

Good thing I packed extra patience!