Child sponsorship update from Mamelodi, South Africa

Update for child sponsors from the SOS Children's Village Mamelodi, South Africa from Summer 2008.

Very warm greetings from the capital city of the Republic of South Africa, to you our sponsor overseas. It is a great pleasure for me to report that the Mamelodi Village with its staff and lovely children are doing well and enjoying a good and healthy life.

I would like to take this opportunity to again brief you our good sponsor on the progress that has taken place after our last correspondence with you. We are currently enjoying a good staff retention climate and our staff is still intact. This on its own means a lot to us in that the children are constantly dealing with the same members and building relationships.

A Brief Overview Since Our Last Correspondence.
I am very glad to report that this year we have managed to step up the gear in terms of admitting children into our facility. We have since managed to admit seventeen children since the beginning of this year. This brings the total number of children to one hundred and fifty. We are running in full capacity at the present moment and we are very excited to be in a position to reach out to more children and make a difference in their lives.

Five children have since been integrated with their parents due to better conditions in their family environment, and four of our youth has also been integrated back to community. Two of our girls have since graduated into the youth houses. Of the one hundred and fifty children, twenty are at high schools, ninety seven at primary schools, four at schools for skills, eleven at our kindergarten, five at special schools and four are minors who are still at home due to their age.

Growing up at Mamelodi, South Africa

We are very excited about our early intervention strategy in relation to our children's education. We have registered fifty two children at Kip McGrath educational support specialist. This is to help our young children in terms of reading, writing and comprehension. This is over and above their day to day normal school routines and is an extra educational support. Thirty of the higher primary and secondary schools children have been registered with a school specialising in maths, physics and science. These are children who are doing well educationally, for them to maintain and improve on their quality of education.

In our youth department we are currently having thirty youth, twenty in high schools, thirteen at colleges for skills and seven at universities. We have already identified twelve for integration next year in 2009. I must also say that these youth were identified last year already, for this year it`s all about putting all the necessary requirements for integration in place. They are very excited about the bold move of being totally independent. All the twenty high school youth are being currently linked with Saturday support schools to be supported in their various subjects.

High light of the term
We are faced with a statutory requirement in South Africa that say all child care workers should now be registered with the National Child Care Profession. It was very exciting for us to be able to comply with this requirement, in that all of our staff are now registered and striving to further their qualification in the field of child care.

This furthering of education by our staff will also go a long way in enabling the association to achieve its organisational development goal. One of our high light was the formation of a sport committee, educational support committee and achieving a fully functioning child and youth development team. I must say though that this was possible through your support.

On behalf of the team at Mamelodi village, I would like to thank you again for your continued support. Our children`s future is our main focus and we would not be able to do what we do without your generous help, for that we thank you.

Yours Sincerely

J.S.Skhosana
(Village Director)