September 2009 school holidays: “The rural voice!”

For those of you who were wondering what our children and youth were up to during this past school holiday, we have decided to let you in on their excitement! The theme for the week was “The Rural Voice” and it aimed to teach our children and youth what it means to be a real servant leader by using their gifts to make a difference in their own community. This programme ran for 4 days and was attended by 163 farm children and youth from farms in the Riebeeksrivier Valley and surrounding areas.

The Tiener Aksie (12 – 13 years) and Youth in Construction (14 – 20 years) youth groups went to visit Greenpoint Stadium where some of the soccer world cup matches will be played in 2010. This was the most amazing experience for them and we thank the West Coast District Municipality for making this wonderful trip possible for our rural farm children. After this incredible experience they went to our new Southern Cross POP Youth Centre in Esterhof, Riebeek Kasteel where they planted grass in the court yard and at the entrance of the building with some 100 very curious children from Riebeek Kasteel watching them from a small distance. I am sure that they can’t wait to join in on a youth programme and hopefully we will be able to give them a school holdiday programme in December / January.

The highlight of the rest of the week was seeing these children and youth working together to make wooden benches for their parents to sit on, painting white T-shirts (with messages like Stop drinking, stop hurting, stop abusing, etc. on it), making small things e.g. cars with wire, beading and embroidery.

Here are some pictures to show you our children and youth at work during the September school holidays.

                    

 Here are some pictures of our children and youth going out to the farms to put smiles on the faces of the rest of their community.

            

The days of having boring and uninteresting school holidays are officially over for the children and youth who are part of our Path out of Poverty Programme. They had lots of fun, learned valuable new skills and most of all were able to give of themselves to the larger community and touched the hearts of their parents. Thank you Sophie, Jaco and Edlyne for implementing such an amazing programme! We are very proud of you.

Thanks for reading this blog and for all your incredible support. We would love to hear from you too so please do send us your comments.

Till next time!!

Love, Ingrid