Celebrate with Us! HISA Successes 2022
Greetings Friends of Hope in South Africa!
We've been on a roll with your gracious support and investment in the communities we support in the Karoo region of South Africa for 17 years now. The needs are so great, it is sometimes difficult to see all we have made happen in the communities that benefit immensely from our support.
In 2021, we were thrilled to unveil our expanded E-Learning Center which enabled us to accommodate more users, install a community hotspot that improved our WiFi access and provide more up-to-date computers to the children and adults in Richmond.
In 2022, you joined our Construction Crew and we were able to complete the newly expanded and renovated Soup Kitchen.
We'll be sharing our goals for 2023 soon, as our team in Richmond prioritizes their needs, but in the meantime we want to share with you all that we were able to do beyond the bricks and mortar of our organization.
We are eager to share our 2022 successes. Please know that we truly appreciate your investment in our work.
Mary Nagle
President, Hope in South Africa
Let’s Take a Look Back at Our 2022 Achievements...
While it goes without saying that 2021 was a challenging year for many, we were able to get back to something closer to business as usual in 2022. We are beyond proud of our ability to provide such an array of assistance throughout the year and partner with you to be providers of hope.
One claim to fame we want to tout is that our community was identified as the cleanest and best organized by the local Department of Social Development and our District Municipality. And we quote:
“[Our] recommendation is that the Centre should be celebrated by the entire Northern Cape and the project should be duplicated."
We are hoping that made your jaw drop!
See our many accomplishments below. The stress is on OUR, because none of this is possible without your commitment to our mission.
2022 Activities & Accomplishments
Nutritional Feeding Scheme
E-Learning classes for students and adults
Sports for Development—Educating Youth on Life Skills through Sport
Awareness Programmes for Gender Based Violence (GBV), Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) and HIV.
Girls Mentoring Projects
Computer and Gender Based Violence Training for Coaches
Reading Coaching
Delivered interactive experiential learning activities with children and Youth, increasing their knowledge of the Harmful effects of substance abuse
Engaged community members in FASD, GBV prevention activities and events, increasing their knowledge of prevention tactics and availability of local health services
Soup Kitchen
While there were still COVID related restrictions, we continued providing food to the children of Richmond from our Soup Kitchen throughout 2022.
We served nutritional meals daily to children aged 3 to 18 with a total of 64,963 meals at our Community Center and in the nearby Squatters Camp.
This was a significant jump for our Soup Kitchen staff and was really remarkable due to the challenges that construction placed on our kitchen team and the issues our community faces in the wake of COVID.
Our partnerships and increased efforts made this possible. Food Forward SA, an organization that started donating food to us in 2020, is still supplying us and with the kitchen renovation we are able to store their donations and more with the freezers and secure pantry.
The most amazing transformation, according to our GHISA Board Chair, Kevin McKey, after much planning and a six month construction process, is our kitchen renovation. It's clean, efficient and garners a new sense of pride amongst the staff. We were able to outfit it with many needed tools of the trade, including three chest freezers, new pots, 400 plates and spoons and are working on installing a washing machine, all due to the generous support of donors like you!
Computer Center
We are excited about the opportunities created since our E-Learning Center's grand opening in 2021. We can now accommodate 40 students at once to assist with a host of programs including a constant stream of children and adults who are provided basic computer skills in MS WORD, typing, use of the Internet, research, homework, assistance with applications to universities, creating resumes, job applications, and access to email accounts to look for jobs, applying for assorted bursary funding and state tertiary funding (National Student Financial Aid Scheme - NASFAS).
Students pop in to research for school projects, general homework assistance, printing of documents and many young children learn about using computers by playing games.
We partnered with the Karoo Development Trust in nearby Loxton and developed a program that will roll out the first quarter of 2023 to assist 60 community members with computer training. The goal of the program is to provide youth with basic personal and computer skills to give them the tools they need to navigate challenges and seek better opportunities for a brighter future.
We also took our sport program participants through an occupational readiness course which teaches them about time and money management, career assessment, job hunting, CV/resume writing/content, interviewing, image/appearance and other planning and organizational skills that job seekers need.
Promoting Healthy Lifestyles
Beyond our nutritional endeavors, we promoted healthy lifestyles through daily program delivery that included sports, reading programs, computer lessons and mentoring.
We provide a Life Skills Program with a variety of objectives and achievements via E-Learning, Sports for Development - which educated youth on life skills through sport and of course our Nutritional Feeding Scheme. Some of the skills covered in these programs include self-confidence, self-respect, interpersonal skills, empathy, compassion, managing emotions, personal responsibility, dependability, integrity, work ethics, positive attitude, conflict management, teamwork, verbal and written communication, cooperation, decision-making and critical thinking.
Further, through our Sport-Based Curriculum, we offered Awareness Programmes for Gender Based Violence (GBV), Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) and HIV.
Serving the Larger Community
We were instrumental in assisting 332 individuals with their applications for COVID-19 Social Relief Fund. Our computer workstations and the connectivity we provide are often the only means community members have to access the resources available to them.
The investment in our borehole brought broad joy from all spheres of the community. Many were happy that we could find water right at our doorstep. Richmond traditionally faces water shortages based on a lack of infrastructure, theft, damaged pumps, etc. We are thrilled to be able to provide water from time to time to the larger community when necessary and Jacob, our gardener, is ecstatic to be able to reliably water the garden.
We also held a major event in March - Human Rights Day. It was a community sport event with close to 200 adults and children from the community. We had six soccer teams with 11 boys per team and four netball teams comprised of 34 girls ages 11 to 17.