ILM’s search for the TLB continues, but it seems like DoPW (Department of Pubic Works) from the Mapuzi road site is going to help us to flatten the site……a few more days till head office gives approval (fingers crossed). In the meantime, things at ILM are progressing well.

One of our commitments to the new ILM project, is to help establish 6 pre-schools in surrounding villages and our first one has already started.  Mawotsheni pre-school was built by our good friends, Willendoen from Holland.  They took Nomapuzi’s pre-school from a dark, windowless hut, to a a rectangular, sunny room, and thanks to ILM”s generous friends, Maree Tebble and Darren, they have transformed this space into a proper pre-school environment – thank you!!!

Mawotsheni pre-school – March 2012

Willendoen then got shelves built for the pre-school

Shelves that need activities…..

Then Mareen Tebble and Darren went off to East London with a long shopping list, and came back with all these wonderful materials and activities – THANK YOU/ENKOSI KAKUHLU from Nomapuzi and all the children at Mawotsheni pre-school xxx

Starting to look like a pre-school

Starting to look like a Montessori pre-school

Mawotsheni pre-school children operating in their environment

We look forward to the helping our next pre-school in the cluster, which is situated at  Mount Packard.  If you would like any further info on this project, please feel free to contact me.

“If help and salvation are to come, they can only from the children, for the children are the makers of men” – Maria Montessori

Until next time, Dawn, Nomapuzi and all the children xx

2012 Saw only 2 new students enter the scholarship programme, which was most unfortuante, as I went and did presentations at of the 6 local Junior Secondary Schools in the surrounding areas.  The 2 new students are Sisipho Nyaleka  from Pato JSS (sponsored by Mark and Jen Raffan – thank you!) and Siphelele Sotomela from Coffee Bay JSS (sponsored by Franziska Iseli and Christo – thank you!)

Siphelele Sotomela (new student in grade 10)

Sisipho Nyaleka (new student in grade 10)

 

 

The 2 new girls settled into St Johns quickly and both of them really enjoy the boarding school (as one of them said, “At school you don’t get disturbed when you are studying, to make tea for an adult or go to the shop”)   The other 4 students are still going well at St Johns and we now have 2 students in grade 10, 2 in grade 11 and 2 in grade 12.

 

 

 

I need to say a VERY special thank you to St Johns College, to Mr Magaqa (principal) and his staff, for giving the children such a good education……….Hardy Gaqa, one of the students from the programme, who matriculated from St  Johns in 2010, (with 4 distinctions!) is now studying Mining Engineering at Wits University and has gone on to secure himself a full bursary from Anglo Gold Ashanti!!!!!  Absolutely amazing news and super well done to Hardy on his efforts – the sky is now your limit!!!  A big thanks to Danny Whitley from Australia for sponsoring Hardy for those 3 years – you truly helped change a child’s whole life x  Thank you also to Sharon and Mark in Johannesburg for supporting Hardy before he went to Uni and for connecting him up with the Anglo Gold crew – you guys were instrumental in this amazing process…..GO HARDY!!!

Hardy Gaqa – No more ‘interview’ faces, only big smiles now

 

Hardy has set a high standard for the students at St Johns now, but he has proved that it can be done, if you really want it and if you put your mind to it!  Hardy once sat in Pato JSS, now he is getting his passport so that he can explore the world!  Way to go young man

This year Sustainable Coffee Bay NPO was fortunate enough to receive 4 full bursaries for 4 young ladies from the area to attend the South African College of  Tourism in Graaff Reinet.  This is the 3rd year that we have been lucky enough to get these wonderful bursaries from SACT – thank you!

After going through numerous interviews during 2011, the following 4 ladies were selected to go to Graaff Reinet:

Nomvana Khalipha, Nomtombodidi Mvunge, Ncumisa Maqambayi, Babalwa Rixi on their way to the SACT in Graaff Reinet – January 2012

We wish these ladies the best of luck with their studies.

2011 treated the young Marhenene boys well and they are definitely on the up-and-up………. all round!   They started attending surfing contests this year and it is amazing how this has positively effected these young boys’ development – thank you to Border Surfing and Surfing South Africa for providing this opportunity!

In early February 2011, Lukholo and Mbulelo were invited to their 1st ever surfing contest!  It was hosted by BSA  (www.bordersurfing.co.za)  and it was  the BSA  Grom Contest held in East London.  The boys had a lovely contest and a fantastic weekend, with many first-time experiences.  At the end of February the 2 boys were invited back to East London for a Trial for Development Surfers contest.

Early March saw Thobile being invited to East London by BSA for his first surf contest – he absolutely loved it and being the friendly boy he is, he made many new friends that weekend.  At the end of March, he was invited back to East London for the 3rd Open Event trials.  Another great weekend was had, with many life skills learnt.

                                                       Thobile enjoying a wave in Coffee Bay

During the April school holidays, Lukholo and Mbulelo were invited to the Billabong SA Grommet Games in Port Elizabeth.  This contest was attended by young surfers from all over South Africa and is used to identify and reward surfers who show potential and who have excelled…….clearly the young Lukholo did this, as he was selected for the SA Development Academy Squad for 2011.

During the July school holidays, Buccaneers Backpackers at Chintsa organized a Surf Development weekend.  Thobile and his older brother Ninti, attended this wonderful weekend, along with other developing surfers from the Eastern Cape and Knysna.  There was lots to be seen, done and learnt.  Surf development, life saving, a marine walk, dolphin viewing from a rubber duck and a surf contest were all part of this well enjoyed weekend.

While Thobile and Ninti were in Chintsa, Lukholo and Mbulelo had been selected to attend a SSA (www.surfingsouthafrica.co.za) Surf Development Camp at Seals in St Francis.  These 5 days were, without a doubt, the highlight of these 2 boys lives!! They were also lucky enough to spend a day at the Billabong Pro in J-Bay, where they met and mingled with world famous surfers, who inspired them to the core……….and Jordy Smith coming out as their top hero and inspiration.

Lukholo getting ready to go out for a surf in Coffee Bay

August saw Lukholo and Mbulelo being invited to another SSA contest in East London, and it was shortly after this contest that Lukholo was advised that he had been selected for the Border U15 Surf team and he would be going to surf at the South African Champs in Durban in October.  He has not been seen without a smile since then, and he is surfing with a new zest.

Thobile will also be going to Durban in October, as he has been selected as a travelling reserve for the U17 Border surf team.

Surf’s up!

Coming back from a good surf in Coffee Bay

On the educational side of these young boys lives, they have been lucky enough to be receiving English lessons three times a week from a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer, Lavonne Bosman, and with great thanks to Lavonne, Thobile’s reading has developed heaps and bounds over the past 3 months. Mbulelo does well academically at his school, (which is about 5km away from their home) and Lukholo received an Academic Achievement certificate from his school.  As a reward for effort, we decided to give the boys bicycles and with GREAT thanks to Daytrippers (www.daytrippers.co.za) the boys got their bicycles in July.  They are now able to get to school, English lessons and to Coffee Bay when surf’s up……. much quicker.

2012 started with a bang with  8 new children joining our pre-school of 15, and 5 of them were 3 year olds….. this was going to be very interesting and challenging!!!

The other major challenge for us was going to be organising a TLB or Bulldozer to come and level the site at Jonga, for the new, big ILM!  This mission started during the last week in January.

The ‘newbies’ at ILM were really being shown the way by the ‘more experienced’ Montessori children and this was really amazing to observe…..and it made my life so easy   The children are practising problem solving skills on a daily basis and there is a beautiful respect between the ‘inexperienced’ and the ‘experienced’ children – another lovely observation.

Esam, Iviwe and Atayanda singing a trio for us, happy as can be

Qaqamba (new) in pink, with Chulumanco in front

New children – Esam (in blue), Nomaindia and Lukholo

Molo, I am Minentle and I am 4 years old

Excuse my back, I am Usiphile, 4 years old and I like counting

IIM has also been financially blessed this year, with 2 of our children getting sponsored (thank you Kim Megly and Lizzie Whitehouse) and with donations from Lizzie Whitehouse (thank you for doing pub quizzes in the UK – super star!), Matthew Crompton and the lady from Switzerland with the initials MM – thank you very much for your support – you guys have helped to develop our environment and therefore our children and for that we say a massive ENKOSI KAKUHLU (thank you very much).    See what I mean…..

Maree Tebble (a friend of ILM from Australia) came to visit us in April and she said she wanted to take the children from ILM on an outing…….so it was decided to take them to Hole-in-the-Wall, as only 3 out of the 15 children had ever been there before.  Maree, her partner Darren, Nokuthula, Siziwe, myself and 13  children piled into ‘our own private mini bus taxi’ on Friday the 13th and headed off to Hole-in-the-Wall, armed with picnic food and toasties for the fire!  It was singing, laughing, talking and fun, fun, fun, fun, fun ALL the way to Hole-in-the-Wall – YEEEEAAAAHHH!  What a lovely, bumpy ride!!!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Hole-in-the-Wall we go…

A great time was had at the Hole and all bellies were well full by the time we had to leave……and then it was more singing and happiness all the way to Coffee Bay!  Thank you Mareen and Darren for a super Fun Friday and for giving our children that lovely experience!!

ILM children at HITW – April 2012

As the weeks progressed, so did our search for the TLB/Bulldozer…we went to the visit the DoPW roads site at Mapuzi on a number of occasions, we tried our contacts in Bisho, we asked local authority to try and assist us…..we were just not winning.  Eventually Luke, the builder, said that he was going to see if it was possible to build in a different manner, in a way where the site did not need to be levelled before building.  We waited with bated breath, and a week later Luke came back and said we NEED a TLB/Bulldozer….the mission was now getting hectic, as we were meant to have started building already!?!?!?!?!?  I befriended the local bridge contractors, I harrased the DoPW in Grahamstown, but all we got back were words…and machines that looked like this (ha ha ha). Sorry.

On Wednesday, 18 April 2012, (please record the date!) Dave from Coffee Shack said he had seen movement at the Mapuzi road site and had seen a TLB working outside….say no more….with Luke, Nomonde and Dawn on it…..this is what started happening at our new Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori site…..LEVELLING OF LAND, hip hip hooray!!!!

Starting to level the site at the new Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori – Jonga village, Coffee Bay – hooray!

We have done our building budget, mmmmmm, and we are short quite alot of materials, or money to purchase those materials.  If anyone reading this is interested in our new project and would like to help, please feel free to email me or leave your email address in the comments – and I will gladly send you a Case for Support.  Will keep you posted on the progress – until then, stay well   Dawn and the abantwanas x

As the year started drawing to an end, we got ready to say farewell to some of our children. They were progressing onto new pastures, sad for us to lose them, but great for their next phase of development   We ended our school year with the children and their mama’s joining us for a sausage and salad lunch. The children were happy and there were holidays up ahead.  Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori would like to thank all the visitors that came to see us at school during 2011, we really enjoyed it!  Thank you also very much to the very kind donors  who leave money at Coffee Shack or who do deposits into our account – and a very special thank you to all the Coffee Shack guests who played in my Sunday night quizzes – you guys rock!  We are where we are today because of all your support – thank you, we really appreciate it!!  Happy days  – see you in 2012!

Esona just being

Shanaaz & Ndindi - 3 legged running - co-ords!!!!

1 Happy Nopesnukha - off to big school

Shanaaz (standing) and Shannon

Josh in mid-air - YEA YAA!

Siya, the Hula Hoop star!

Spring definitely sprung in Coffee Bay………flowers were blooming, puppies and kittens were being born and the children at Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori were blossoming into amazing little human beings!  The waiting list of children wanting to attend the pre-school was also growing and growing…….

THEN I answered a phonecall in early September from the NDA (National Development Agency) and Avela told me that they were going fund the building of the new Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori Pre-school!!!! WOW – what a WONDERFUL phonecall to receive

Noncokazi Simoyi (a Sustainable Coffee Bay NPO colleague and the woman who has opened her own laundromat) and I went off  to East London to go and sign the documents from the NDA.  I still couldn’t actually believe it!!!!  And to just really tip the scale, while I was visiting Sharon Caldwell, a very experienced Montessorian in East London, she gave Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori some  INCREDIBLE Montessori materials for both the maths and the culture section……..I throught I was going to pass out……just tooooooo many good things happening at one time – hectic!!!

After managing to climb down from cloud 9, I starting making plans, and there were many of these ahead!  After going through the contract very carefully, I realised that our building budget of R300 000.00 was not really very much, at all, for building a big pre-school – we would have to put our heads together for this challenge!!

Now it was time to source a site of land from one of the local communities.  I first attended a community meeting in Rini (which is our local village) and told everyone about the funding from the NDA and that all the community was required to do, was donate a piece of land for the pre-school.  I then invited the headmen (the man in charge of the village) from 12 surrounding villages and explained to all of them about the NDA story.  The headmen were asked to return in 7 days to advise whether their community had a site to donate to the pre-school.  After the week had passed, it was the village of Jonga (which is on the right side of the top of the cement hill) that came back to say that they had a site for us!

We arranged a meeting with the NDA and they invited the Dept of Roads and Public Works and with the headman of Jonga and some senior community members, we went to check out the site.  It was looking good – The site for our new pre-school is looking good! WHOOP WHOOP!

                               Site for the new pre-school

                                                                                                                                 Checking out the new site!

The next step was to get the Department of Land Affairs/Rural Development to come down and do a Community Resolution – this was another challenge!  My land angels were working with me though, as we called and emailed the department on a daily basis, for about 18 days straight……I think Mr Pakade was so sick of hearing from me, that he gave me the date for the Community Resolution meeting – 3 December 2011! YEAH!!!!

Avela from NDA expressing her joy

3 December 2011 proved to be a very, very hot day and I must say a MASSIVE thank you to the Jonga community, as they sat in the blazing sun for a good few hours, supporting the new pre-school – I would take my hat off to them – but it really is toooooo hot! (haha).  There were only positive words heard on that scorching day and after all said, done and signed, we all went off to the site to enjoy some bread and Coolcrush and to find some shade!

The tata's from Jonga sitting in the blazing sun

Nomonde talking on behalf of ILM and SCB

After a good mid-year break, we opened school ready for the 3rd term……We had new globes for the environment, a Sandpaper Globe and a Continents Globe – Excellent!

We returned to school on a Monday, after having been open for 2 weeks, and what greeted my eyes was very sad………our whole garden had been destroyed……the plants had been munched, the seedlings had been dug out of the ground and munched and everythimg was ‘deurmekaar’……..it was the first time in a long time that tears rolled down my cheeks…….and I do believe that the culprits were this family…………………………………

 

 

 

 

 

The Culprits?????                                                                                                                                       Mama protecting her piglets

It took a while to get over the destruction of the garden……..then Nothula was off to Itec  www.itec.org.za for some Early Childhood Development training in East London.  Happy days!

Winter carried on…… our garden developing slowly, our children developing quickly and Leo and Rhi came to visit us for a Fun Friday in August.   We joyfully sang Xhosa songs while Leo played guitar and we were blessed with traditional, boerePumpkin Fritters for lunch, all made by Leo. Thank you sooooo much for your efforts, our children will never forget pumpkin fritters

Charlene Quest, a friend of S.C.B’s did a fundraiser for us in Madison, in the USA in May 2011. It was a night of make-up, hair and fashion – to make some dollars for the Coffee Bay community.  Charlene and Angela went all out and produced a memorable night…check out www.studioquest.biz/2011FS.hrm

Studio Quest produced the likes of this!!  All photography was done by www.greenpaintphotography.com

Studio Quest fundraiser

A very successful night – thank you to all!

When Charlene asked me what we needed for ILM, I requested raincoats for all the children, as last year Charlene brought all the children gumboots  When she arrived in Coffee Bay later in the year, she brought the raincoats.

Charlene and the children

Sonwabise and Esona in their new red rain coats

 

 

 

 

Nopesnukha and Josh

May also saw us receiving some boxes from Sam Streak at Port Elizabeth Montessori www.pemontessori.co.za …oh my goodness, what amazing boxes to receive……and how exciting top open boxes full off valuable, proper Montessori materials…..covering areas from Sensorial to Culture…big WOW!!!

Those boxes enriched  Ikhaya Labantwana’s  indoor environment so much – I cannot even explain!

Sonwabise doing the Spindles

  

Nopesnukha doing a finger strengthening activity

Then Jalian Johnston and Corey came to visit ILM.  Jalian was from ‘Waves for Water’ and very kindly donated us a water filter which was sponsored by Hurley. They showed us how to set it up and our children have been drinking clean water ever since.  Thank you so much to Hurley and Waves for Water.   Check out www.hurley.com/blog/blog.cfm/aid/45188

Our veggie garden was doing super well and the children were eating very healthy lunches daily from “igardi labantwana” (garden of the children) and everyone was in really good health.

Thank you Kate for our lovely garden!

Sylvain and Valerie Barbot came to spend a fun day with us at school and they made a little recording of the day at  http://www.green-trotter.fr/lecole-montessori-de-coffee-bay.html

Our new kitchen!

Ikhaya Labantwana Montessori –  Mar/Apr 2011 Catch-up

 

Our relationship with the NDA improved much in March and many, many hours were  spent on proposals and budgets for building a big Montessori Early Learning Centre for 60 children, somewhere in the greater Coffee Bay area.

The kitchen at ILM, which had been sponsored by Stichting Obonto (www.stichtingobonto.nl) in 2010 already – was eventually completed, thanks to Rudolf and Jacobus from Wilderness!

                    

And they built us a composting toilet – happy days! 

We were also lucky enough to meet Ryan and Katie Kuja, who came to spend time with us at school.  Check out what they do at www.easternsurf.com/trav-africa/