A day of hope

On 25.05.2019 Cyril Ramaphosa was sworn in as president of South Africa for another five-year period. Many people in South Africa have the hope that his new cabinet will be less corrupt and more efficient to rekindle the economy of the country and to reduce the high unemployment rate especially among the youth.

On this day of hope 85 members of Tsibogang Christian Action Group came together in St. Jospeph’s Retreat Center in Mahikeng for their annual general meeting (AGM). The three Action Groups presented their annual reports for the last financial year that in line with the government institutions starts on 1. April and ends on 31. March. They also outlined their strategic plans for the new financial year.

The newly elected chairperson of Tshepanang Tebogo Kgori reported that last year 48 peer educators had taught the age specific Tshepanang Curricula in 29 schools reaching a total of 5946 students. Since January 2019 45 peer educators teach in 26 schools. Most of them were teaching the new lessons that they got to know during the workshop in October last year. In total the reach 5098 students.
The long-serving chairperson of Tlamelang Stephen Modiane reported that last year 35 home care givers had visited 363 chronically ill patients in their homes regularly. 83 local actions were held against stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV or PTB in sub-urbs of Mahikeng and in villages of our district. In total 2844 people attended these campaigns.

84 orphans and vulnerable children were educated in our two Early Learning Centers according to the Montessori approach and 493 orphans and vulnerable children attended our After School Programs where they were assisted with their home works and received remedial teaching and a wide range of life skill lessons as well a warm meal per day.

The long-serving chairlady of Amogelang Itsholeng Loving reported that last year not only the Amogelang (Accept!)Support Group for People Living with HIV and the support group for children living with HIV (A Re Tshamekeng Bana with 40 members) could be maintained, but two new support groups for People Living With HIV could be established: Kgolagano (meaning togetherness) in Mahikeng and Amazing Women in Welbedacht. In addition three Soul Buddy Groups for children were founded where children are sensitized for issues pertaining to HIV.

When presenting the annual financial report Coordinator Dr. Wolfgang Hermann highlighted that in the last financial year the expenditure was more than 750,000 Rand (46,875 Euro) higher than the income and the reserves of the organization were shrinking accordingly. This was caused by the fact that we lost three of our major donor organizations (South African Catholic Bishoph’s Conference, Soul City and Else Kroener Fresenius Stiftung) because they themselves were losing their main donors.

The budget for the new financial year that was adopted by the AGM of 3.5 million Rand (218,750 Euro) is less than the budget of the previous years. With this reduced budget we still want to continue with most of our projects except the local actions against stigma and discrimination and the home visits to orphans and vulnerable children. We hope to expand our After School Program if we succeed to secure donations for that from Bingo Umwelt Stiftung and other donors.

Wolfgang Hermann

A day of hope
WordPress Cookie Plugin by Real Cookie Banner