News

Training the future leaders of Munsieville

The Thoughtful Path Leadership Academy is a partnership between Project Hope UK and Damelin College to bring leadership skills to Munsieville residents. The first programme started on Friday, 13 January and will run for six months, ending in June.
Project Hope UK volunteer, Alyson Krucher said, “The first workshop was run by Shaun McLardy from Damelin who facilitated right and left brain learning and then expanded into personality profiles, identifying for each individual their personality footprint and what that means as far as leadership strengths and communicating with others. The students seemed to really enjoy themselves, and participation was great. A special outcome of this first workshop is that Shaun recommended that Academy students should guide Grade 12 learners from Munsieville towards Damelin College for an evaluation to identify which career and education path the learners should take.”
“Career counselling and guidance is so important for the children of Munsieville, especially when they reach the end of secondary school. Presently there is nothing in place to offer guidance and reveal opportunities, so many students graduate and then do nothing. This is a great opportunity to get more students into tertiary education or technical skills training.”
There will be one workshop a month for the Academy students, held on a Friday afternoon. It is expected that participants of the Leadership Academy will remain involved with The Thoughtful Path through participation in its hub activities in Munsieville, covering early childhood development, after-school care, youth support and development, community strengthening, sports, child rights and protection and community-based organisations’ capacity building.
The Leadership Academy will be repeated every six months, to give as many Munsieville residents as possible the chance to participate and become involved in The Thoughtful Path, transforming the community.

Young ambassadors of a brighter future

On 19 January, Project Hope UK held their first workshop with the House of Young Ambassadors of the Thoughtful Path: Munsieville. The workshops are in run conjunction with Lifeline West Rand. The objectives of the first workshop are to give the Young Ambassadors a thorough insight and understanding of the Thoughtful Path to enable them to identify their key tasks and duties as an Ambassador. In the second part of their training they will be taught about leadership and be helped to understand what leadership style they need to apply as an Ambassador.
The House of Young Ambassadors is a group of 16 young people from the community aged between 11 and 18. They are very important for the Thoughtful Path Munsieville since they will represent the interests of children and young people in Munsieville.
They will also work closely with the hubs and initiatives within the Thoughtful Path Munsieville to help provide a truly comprehensive service to children from birth to adulthood.

Paraffin Is Dangerous, Use It Safely

This story was written by Articia, another student from the Munsieville Young Journalists’ Academy:
For 2 weeks during November/December 2011, a group of health and safety practitioners from the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithkline visited the community of Munsieville in the Krugersdorp area to do research on safety precautions in the township, as part of a volunteer programme sponsored by the company.
The team divided into groups then scattered around the area to visit crèches and shacks. The objective was to go into those places to teach the community members how to use paraffin in a safe way. Paraffin is the only affordable option for the people who live in shacks and many people living in Munsieville use it for cooking and lighting.During the visit to the shacks, the group discovered a man who burnt his hand using paraffin to make floor polish. He said, “I was trying to pour paraffin in a tin filled with melted candles and then the fire flames came out, I tried to remove the tin from the stove when the polish spilled on my hand and I got burnt”. This shows how easily a person can be burnt when using paraffin. The group aims to emphasize the dangers it has for children who are being neglected in the house with no one to supervise them and how easy it is to a start fire, this causes a high rate of injuries and death in the shacks.
The paraffin safety group advises parents to consider the dangers of giving a child water or milk when they have swallowed the paraffin because this causes it to move up to the lungs and it’s easier for a child to suffocate, the best solution is to rush to a hospital after the accident. Paraffin does not only form a danger for children. When it has been spilt on the floor it could cause a fire. Further, it is also not safe for one’s health because the smoke and fumes are dangerous to your eyes, nose and lungs. It is best to keep it away at a cool place in a safe container.
Find more details and information on paraffin safety on The Paraffin Safety Organisation’s Web site or call +27(0)21 671 5767

Improving medical services in Munsieville

Today the GSK clinical team met with the clinic manager in Munsieville to review their observations and suggestions, following the visit last week where we worked alongside the clinic staff. We were concerned about how our suggestions would be perceived, but we were pleasantly surprised. We shared what we saw as strengths and opportunities for improvement. The observations appeared to be well received and we hope that some of our suggestions will be put into action. We focused on partnering with Project Hope UK, patient and staff safety, and increased efficiency. Today we took a big step towards improving the quality of the medical services for the people of Munsieville – another step along The Thoughtful Path, transforming the lives of the people in the community.

First case for Child Protection Hub in Munsieville

Last Saturday, a parent phoned Project HOPE UK to ask for help with a problem with her 11 year old daughter. One of the Child Protection Hub members, a volunteer from Life Line, helped to interview the child and we agreed that we should consult Victim Empowerment. A social worker from Krugersdorp Child Welfare talked to the girl and found out that there were 3 more children who had been sexually abused in Mshenguville by a man over 50 years old, the youngest victim being just 8. All children and their mothers were taken to the hospital for tests and counselling.
This distressing story demonstrates the need for the Thoughtful Path Children’s Embassy, due to open in Munsieville in eight days time. Its first objective is to provide a place where children can turn for help, support and protection, whenever they feel vulnerable, 24/7. This case shows that the work is already going on to support children and families in danger and to give them the legal, medical and psychosocial support needed when they are in crisis.
The Children’s Embassy will be opened by the 16-strong House of Young Ambassadors, on Friday 2 December, as the high point in the Tshepo (Hope) Festival and Health Fair. Check out our Facebook page for news and photos from the opening, a significant step forward on The Thoughtful Path

Munsieville’s brick-makers featured in local press

On 3 October, five entrepreneur ladies from Munsieville went to visit Wilkinson in Eikenhof, which produces brick-making machines. The women were accompanied by Betty Nkoana, programme manager of Project Hope UK, Alyson Krucher and Carola Michielsen, two volunteers working for Project Hope UK for six months.
The visit’s primary purpose was to teach the women how to operate the brick-making machines and two of those machines will be donated to The Thoughtful Path by a company called Eriger. The entrepreneurs from Munsieville would like to start a business of their own, making bricks to serve the community. The first bricks will be produced to build three créches in Munsieville by early next year, in order to improve the level of daycare given to the children of Munsieville. After the créches are finished, bricks will be sold to community members.
The women were very excited and eager to learn, and even made some bricks of their own during the demonstration. The machines will be delivered in several weeks, but the women can hardly wait to start. Back in Munsieville, the women signed a proposal to the councillor to request a piece of land in Mayibuye for their activities, including brick-making. They also plan to start a large vegetable garden to supply the first soup kitchen in Munsieville, to feed the orphans and vulnerable children of the community.
Read more and see photos in the Krugersdorp News - raising awareness of The Thoughtful Path!

Tomorrow’s leaders from new academy in Munsieville

Alyson Krucher, a GSK volunteer working for Project HOPE UK in South Africa, writes about her work on an exciting new initiative providing opportunities for young people:
“One of my deliverables for PULSE and Project HOPE UK is the launch of a Leadership Academy in Munsieville, so I developed an application form and a curriculum will be designed with Damelin West Rand College around insight gathered from the applications. We plan to start the 6 month course in November.
During my research, I found information on The African Leadership Academy (ALA), so I arranged a day to visit the campus and offered the opportunity for some of the Munsieville young people to join us. Two Project HOPE UK Youth Voice Journalism Academy students, Bucs and Palesa, accompanied us on the 30 minute drive to Honeydew.
The Academy offers a leadership and entrepreneur curriculum as well as African studies and some liberal arts classes such as science and international history. Last year, the school had 3000 applicants for 100 spots. The Project HOPE UK/Damelin College Leadership Academy is in the early stages in comparison to this highly organised and successful African Leadership Academy, but it has inspired me from a design and implementation side and reinforces the fact that access to funding is crucial for sustainability. It also inspired Bucs and Palesa that anything is possible – this one day gave perspective and built hope for just two young people from Munsieville.
Carola and I discussed how important it is to encourage, support, and coach each willing and engaged person from Munsieville. Doing so, will in time, build a generation of confident, knowledgeable, effective leaders for Africa.”

Munsieville residents at provincial award ceremony

Alyson Krucher, one of our GSK PULSE volunteers, was recently invited to the BKB (Bontle Ke Botho) Provincial Award Ceremony held at Centenary Hall in Mogale City (Krugersdorp). These awards recognise projects implemented in Gauteng Province in the following areas: cleanliness/litter removal, water conservation, energy efficiency and conservation, and sustainable agriculture, and are part of the Clean and Green Initiative in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. There is a monetary prize given to the ward or municipality to be used towards planting trees, waste management, sustainable agriculture and environmental education programmes.
Alyson says: “I took two of the women entrepreneurs from Munsieville, Elizabeth and Anna, to see what this event was all about since I believe they can help Munsieville become a recipient of these awards. Anna looks after the garden behind the School Board building and you should see how big the spinach and cabbages are! She has had so much success that Anna is hoping to start a soup kitchen – the first in Munsieville – to feed the hungry orphans in her community. Elizabeth is a pioneering business woman with interests in brick-making, sewing, candle and soap making, home-based care and gardens. These two women are shining examples of working towards sustainable agriculture in Munsieville and hopefully award winners in future!”

Donated medical equipment helps hospital in Nigeria

Project HOPE UK recently donated some blood pressure monitors and other essential medical equipment to the Aiyegunle Gbedde Cottage Hospital in Nigeria. The medical supplies were received under our Gift in Kind programme, where items like pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and equipment are donated by some of the world’s leading companies. These products range from lifesaving antibiotics to sophisticated medical equipment used to teach the latest surgical techniques and are distributed by Project HOPE UK to communities in need in developing countries.

Project HOPE UK