My work at the project

I am Marloes, 25 years old and I come from Holland.  In 2010/11 I was here for half a year with Maartje, Marina an Ruby for my internship. Back home I finished my study primary school teaching and I decided to come back to South Africa. The children and the project just stole my heart and I need the help here. So this last three months I worked as a volunteer again and now it is already my last week. Hopefully I will be back soon, because there is a big need of help for the kids.

Because I am a teacher I started to help the current teachers. Sometimes I take over the class and sometimes I just assist the teacher. I also take my time to observe the children and their behaviour. Teacher Nita is studying now to become an Early Childhood Educator. She is open to learn, so I work mostly with her.
The children that come to the project now, are from 2 years old to 4 years old. This is younger than I am used to work with. My expertise is more with the older children.

I found out that a lot of older children are at the plakkerskamp during the day. They don’t go to school. And they don’t come to the project anymore, because that is not allowed. This is very heartbreaking, because I want to help them.
One example is Maggie. She is 13 years old and she stays with her father, mother, pregnant sister (16) and two little ones in a small house. The last two months she didn’t go to school anymore, she sleeps in the bush and she breaks into houses at the plakkerskamp to steal their food. One day Jurie found her in the plakkerskamp with all the angry women around her, because they caught her in a house. Maggie got spanked by the ladies and everybody was very upset with her. Jurie took her to the project and Lee helped her to get clean and to make her talk.
After that I worked with her. She didn’t want to feel ‘special’, so I also invited her friends Kathy, Jason and Bonisile to come to the project. I make art and play outside games with them. Maggie loves to make jewellery with beads, so I help her a lot with that. They love the new computer. We dance on music and video ourselves with the webcam. On these moments you can see a happy smile on Maggies face. But the next moment she can turn around all the way and she can be very difficult. So it is really important that she gets help and love, because she really needs it.

For next year I am brainstorming what we can do with these older children.
When I am back next year I want to work with these older children after school time. I want to do workshops with the help of volunteers. We have also people in this area who would like to help at the project. So I want to find out who has which talent and how we can use that.
When it is all organized I want it to be a busy, fun time. One group is playing soccer, while another group is making art. The next day somebody makes wire cars with a group and the other group is dancing in their hip-hop group. I personally have a background in art, so I would help them in art classes like painting and making sculptures.
It would be nice if we can make things to sell, so the children learn how to make money with simple things.

In the mornings, or early afternoons, I want to give kids remedial teaching. There are a lot of children who need extra help. Also the children that are going to government schools. If I can give them extra help, they can maybe stay on the level of the other children in their class.

I hope I can realize my ideas next year and I am going to work hard to make it happen.

Thank you for being interested in my story and I want to thank everybody that helps the project. I will write again when I am back in South Africa.

Marloes

Sep - Dec 2011

Good morning everybody,

As Heidi just said, I will write the blog today. I will write another blog about my work and here I will tell you about the last two/three months at the project.

A lot of things have changed this year when I compare it to last year. Because of the strict government rules, it is more difficult to do what we want to do. But luckily there is so nice help at the project that I see a bright future for the project.

To begin with Ellen en Tina, the volunteers of the previous blog. They helped out a lot. They worked hard to make the classrooms look better. They painted the rooms in bright colours and they made it look very attractive for the children, with nice pictures and drawings. Thank you so much girls!

Then we have Lee, she is a real gift for the project! She is since September the principle of the project. Lee has a very good feeling for the children, the staff and the plakkerskamp. She helps the teachers with their lessons. Every day she makes a program, so the teachers know what to do.
She works hard to get the parents more involved. And believe me, that is not an easy job. Everything is so good organized now. People come now to the project to sign their children in for next year.

Ralph finished the containers in the back of the project. It looks very nice. Next year we will work here with the older children. Pictures will come!

My father Hans came here in November, to start up a computer room. He bought two laptops and a printer. He installed everything and he helped Jason to work on the computer. We are very happy that my father did this, because now we can teach the kids computer skills. Educational programs are a bit too expensive, so we have to look for some nice affordable educational games. Thank you again dad for this great project! He also wrote a blog: https://sites.google.com/site/bonniepeoplezuidafrika2011/

In October Aly and Francis from Luxemburg visited the project. They worked hard to organize things for the project. They had a lot of meetings and they made some nice decisions. Soon you will hear about these new plans! I am very excited.

For next year, we want to get the whole community more involved. We would like to do this by activities for young and old. For example: Ladies who like to do needlework can make things together at the project. Maybe they can make things to sell. Important is that the people feel welcome at the project and that they have a good time. Drinking tea, music on the background, talking with each other, etc.
We made some very nice contacts with other community projects in this area. We are very open to work together and help each other, so we can be stronger.  

In January we will start a new year, with new ideas and new youngsters and children. There will be volunteers in January and we are very thankful for that!

                                               Children learning to eat with knife and fork