The makeover will take place the weekend of the 29th to 31st of July, they will be rebuilding, repainting, refurbishing and more and are looking for willing participants, organisations to help them.

Some of the things they will be doing over the weekend is:

• Repairing indoor and outdoor cement work
• Laying grass in-between the houses
• Painting the interior and exterior walls
• Painting the ceiling and all doors
• Repairing all light fittings and switches
• Repairing plumbing
• Repairing or replacing all cupboards and replacing hinges and new handles
• Repairing broken windows
• Installing new curtain rails and curtains in all rooms
• Paving certain areas

Should you wish to donate as an individual or a company to this renovation project or even if you wish to volunteer your services for the weekend of the renovation, please contact NewKidz on their website http://www.newkidz.org.za/ or e-mail on newkidzsa@gmail.com.  NewKidz on the Block is a registered NPO based in Cape Town mainly concerned with the plight of orphans in South Africa.

Baphumelele is extremely grateful to Heart 104.9, the MySchool project and NewKidz for their help in improving the lives of our children.  We appreciate any help either through volunteering or donations that anyone can give towards this project.

The cyclists were touched by the work done by Baphumelele and so they chose our organisation to donate to.  The team went out to the market place to try to obtain donations for us and quickly realised that finding funding was not going to be an easy process due to the grip of our economy, however they did manage to find organisations who were willing to put their hands in their pockets and donate to their cause.

Baphumelele and the SACD Freight cyclists would like to thank Vox Orion (supplier of VPN and VOIP Services) for sponsoring the cycling kit for 5 riders as well as donating R20,000.00 to Baphumelele and to BidFreight Terminals who donated R10,000.00 and In The Cloud Services (supplier of Email Management Services i.e. email security and archiving) who donated R1,500.00 towards our cause.  Every little helps and this will certainly make a difference to the lives of our children.

The SACD team planned to enter a 4 man team for the 160km event and a solo lady to compete in the 80 km event, unfortunately one of their male riders was mugged in the week leading up to the event and due to the seriousness of his injuries he was unable to participate in the event, so they used their lady and entered as a mixed team for the 160 km event.  The team found it one of the toughest 160km events that they have completed to date and although they could not complete it as a full team due to technical issues everyone enjoyed it.

Baphumelele staff and children are touched and proud of the riders who took part in this race to help raise funds for us and to the donors who contributed towards their cause.  We are honoured that SACD chose us to fundraise for and are extremely grateful for everyone’s kindness.

The idea for Rosie’s bakery came about when Rosalia Mashale (MD and Founder of Baphumelele) met Dan Leader (CEO of Bread Alone – USA) in Germany a couple of years ago.  Dan had met Rosie on a previous occasion and had continued to keep in touch with her, however it was only when they met in Germany again that the conversation turned to opening up a bakery at Baphumelele.

The aim of Rosie’s Bakery is to benefit the entire township community as well as the children at Baphumelele by making a nutritious bread product through a community run bakery. It is hoped that a better basic diet will allow for improvement in the children’s ability to learn and grow.   In addition to this the bakery has provided employment for members of the community.

SAWGBP partnered with MacAdams Baking Systems to design a 40 foot long self contained bakery within a shipping container.  The containers is long enough to provide space for storage as well as a window through which to sell bread to the public.

The goals of the  bakery are to feed the local community, ensure that any excess bread is given to local feeding programmes and other outreach projects and thirdly teach the bakers  to develop a business plan to sell the bread withing the local marketplace, hopefully making the bakery a viable and sustainable business.  The intention is to make the bakery self sustainable within a year.

So should you want to order some of Mama Rosie’s  fresh Bakery Bread, please come and place an order we will be happy to assist you, we promise you will not be dissapointed.

Progress of Baphumelele Children’s Home

Out of 149 children we had in the care of Baphumelele Children’s Home, 33 children have been discharged.  Some of the children were re-unified with their families after so many years being in the care of Baphumelele Children’s Home and some of them were placed in alternative placements with foster parents.  Although it is sad the children had to leave as they became part of the Baphumelele family it is good news and good progress as we all know that children need to grow within the family environment as much as possible.

In February 2011, a new specialized team was established by Baphumelele Children’s Home called the Re-Unification Team.  This team works hand in hand with the social workers rendering re-unification/re-integration services.  The team trace the family members of the children and assess and screen them to establish whether they are capable of looking after the child, they then consolidate the placement of the child.  The re-unification team also conduct school visits relating to children that are at Baphumelele and create the education plans so that the child’s education needs can be identified and worked on.

Back to School Programme

At the beginning of January the back to school programme was implemented.  Preparations were being made to ensure that the children were equipped with the correct stationery, books and school uniforms for the new year ahead of them, this was made possible thanks to one of our respected donors who sponsored the children’s uniforms.

On the 21st of January 2011 all school aged children returned to school.  Our children were very excited as most of them were starting new grades and the younger children were starting their school careers.  A few of our children have had to repeat previous grades, but we plan on helping them to achieve their potential this year by offering them extra lessons and help with the aid of our volunteers.

The Baphumelele woodworkshop is currently working on new ways to market the sale of our frames and to get the news out there that we are making frames.  The aim of this is also to improve the skills of our staff and also to provide funds to help with the maintenance of the children’s home.  Currently we have a few ideas as to how we can achieve this and we hope to initiate these ideas within the next two months.

1)      We are hoping to export our frames to Europe and the USA and we are working on finding out how to obtain an export permit.

2)      We are hoping to expand our product range thus widening the skill of our employees by for example: making wine boxes and music boxes

3)      We are also hoping to grow our clientele basis across the whole of South Africa and not just the Western Cape.

We will be updating you on the cost of the frames and will upload an order form in due course, so watch this space!

We are always open to ideas and suggestions from our friends and clients so please give us your input as to how we can improve this product and market it.

1. Time Period: minimum of 3 months
2. Accomodation: volunteers can either arrange their own accomodation or stay on the Baphumelele property for minimal rent (rate to be advised).  The accomodation will be self catering.
3. Transport: volunteers need to have an international drivers licence (need to be able to drive a stick shift/manual car).  All volunteers will be required to arrange their own transport for personal use as no Baphumelele vehicles will be allowed to be used other than for Baphumelele related issues.  Police clearance certificates are required as the driver needs to have a clear police record.
4. Age group: 18 and up

Should you be interested in volunteering and learning more about our NGO, please submit a recent Curriculum Vitae to the address on our website: info@baphumelele.org.za