This is my first blog and I am hoping to get the hang of it in the next couple of days so that I can tell you more regularly about the ups and downs of life in a children’s development programme at Goedgedacht farm.
Perhaps for those of you who are not South African I need to explain ’Goedgedacht’. It’s a an old dutch word meaning “good ideas, good thoughts or well conceived” very appropriate in a way. In the UK our registered charity called “Grow Peace in Africa” just because Goedgedacht is such a difficult to get ones tongue around. The farm Goedgedacht, the home of the Goedgedacht Trust, dates from 1704 and was one of the first farms allocated to what were called the “Free Burgers” – they being the Dutch settlers who, having been sent out of by the Dutch East India Company and having discovered the beauties of the Cape of Good Hope took a serious stand against returning to cold old Holland.
In the past I wrote an occasional story about our work but felt that lots of good stories got lost inbetween writing the articles …so I went to a blogging workshop with Marianna who is bright and beautiful and very sussed when it comes to things digital…and although I was the oldest person there by a long shot I really enjoyed it. Since then I’ve had cold feet …thats about 2 months of cold feet! Marianna is bugging me to get started. Sean came to help set me up and I’m still very hesitant, but I really want to get going …so here goes.
Although this is called Annie’s stories my colleague Ingrid Lestrade will be an occasional blogger too. She and I have been working together on the Path out of Poverty Programme for the children of farm workers for the last ten and a half years.
I am trying to insert a picture of us taken at our POP (Path out of Poverty) celebrations by the fabulous celebrity photographer Michelly Rall. He, famous as he is, generously spent two days recording our 10th birthday party entirely free of charge as his contribution to our work. You will see – when I finally get the hang of how to put pictures into this blog, that he takes beautiful photographs and certainly made the two of us feel a little bit like celebrities too!! His proper celebrities include Madonna, R.Kelly, Kirstin Dunst amongst others…so how grand are we!!
