Newsletter 2017

Introduction
The time flew by, 2017 is almost over.
We are proud of our achievements this year and we would like to share the highlights with you in this newsletter.
 
We would like to thank all the sponsors, volunteers, interns and everybody else who helped us this year. Without your support we would not have been able to achieve what we have achieved in 2017.

THANK YOU!

Sport for Development Projects

Thanks to Carine van den Berg, founder of Teachers for Africa, we managed to start a collaboration with a new primary school, 'Mashishimale Primary'. Carine visited South Africa in May. Besides lots of meetings with all the existing projects, she also managed to start up a new collaboration with Mashishimale Primary school. A very nice school with enthusiastic kids and staff. Since May we are teaching sports twice a week to children in grade 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Besides this new school, we continued the sports lessons at Refentse Primary School and Lebeko High School. We did not only give sport lessons during the regular school hours, we also offered after school sports to children from both schools. Twice a week at Refentse Primary School and once a week at Lebeko High School. The after school sports has been a great success and lots of kids participated in these hours. 
A soccer tournament at the Nourish Foundation in Acornhoek was one of the highlights of 2017. On the 26th of May, students at the Nourish Foundation organised an one-day soccer tournament. One of our interns, Milan, started a soccer team a few weeks before the tournament and trained these boys twice a week at the after school sports. On the 26th of May, a team of 13 boys drove to Hoedspruit to compete in the tournament. Considering that some of these boys never left Namagkale, this was a very exciting trip and they were ready to compete. Unfortunately they did not win a price, but everybody had a great time!
Besides the soccer tournament there was also explanation about recycling, snakes in the wild and consciously dealing with the environment. A sporty and educational varied program for the kids!

Education Projects

We were very happy with the different educational volunteers that helped us with the educational projects. They have worked on many subjects. Training our local assistants with regards to 'how do I prepare my lesson', 'how do I introduce my lesson' and 'how do I evaluate my lesson'?, starting up Career Guidance for Grade 9 learners and amending the current curriculum given by our local assistants in the Learner Support Centre at Refentse Primary were some major tasks the education volunteers performed.
A highlight of 2017 was the moment that we brought Tshembile to her new school. Tshembile is a 10 year old deaf girl. We met Tshembile at Nthabiseng Special Needs school. However, since she was deaf she could not communicate and this was not the right school for her. Together with her grandfather and the principal of Nthabiseng we started searching for a school for deaf children. This was found in Tzaneen, about 100 km from Phalaborwa. On the 19th of May we brought Tshembile to her new school and since then she is doing great. She is finally learning sign language so that she can communicate and she has become friends with other deaf kids. 

Special Needs Projects

This year we have been working at 3 special Needs projects. Frangipani, Nthabiseng and Phurulenke.
Thanks to 2 fysiotherapy and 1 occupational therapy students we started therapy sessions at Frangipani and Nthabiseng. 
The students created a therapy booklet to ensure following students and volunteers could continue with the therapy sessions. The kids and schools are very happy with this new activity and we have seen improvement in every kid that received the therapy. We will continue with the therapy in 2018.
Besides therapy sessions we continued with sport lessons at Frangipani and Phurulenke. Unfortunately we could not continue giving sport lessons at Nthabiseng due to changes in the school schedule. However, the kids at Frangipani and Phurulenke were always looking forward to the sportlessons and joined with full enthusiasm. Naturally, we will also continue these lessons in 2018.
Moreover, Michelle, intern dietician, performed her internship at Frangipani Special Needs school where she, among other things,organised theme weeks about food, she wrote an advice for the school regarding the food intake of the kids and she gave a presentation about food to the parents. The school indicated that her internship has been very helpful and they changed some habits.
Lastly, we are proud to announce a new collaboration with a Special Needs Project. Starting from January we will provide sport lessons to the kids at the Horisani project in Lulekani. This project struggles every day to educate and feed the kids due to almost no funding and sponsors. A project with many possibilities and we are looking forward to start working at this project!
We are looking forward to continue our support to realize better education for the children in Ba-Phalaborwa next year, but for now:

We wish you all a very happy, healthy and wonderful 2018!!
SUPPORT US!
We are always looking for sponsors to ensure continuation of our projects. Any donation would be much appreciated!
General account number:
Rabobank NL06 RABO 0111 6549 98 tnv. Stichting Docenten voor Afrika, Santpoort-Zuid
IBAN code: NL06 RABO 0111 6549 98. BIC code : RABONL2U
 
Account number South Africa:
FNB Bank 62441566348 tnv. Teachers for Africa Foundation