Dear friends

Life can be simple and beautiful. Focus on the good things – Maxime Lagacé. That is exactly what we plan to do with this report – to focus on the good things that happened during the second quarter of 2019.

It has been a very busy time and here are some highlights:
We had 333 children attending our services. For the first time ever we had 97 high school learners who attended in May ‘19. We believe one of the reasons is the lovely Natalie Mentoor, our new high school facilitator who joined our ranks. She loves working with the young people and they love spending time with her.

Natalie Mentoor

Two of the matric learners applied to study Social Work at North West University and are awaiting the outcome. More learners attend the Maths after school classes which is very encouraging. Again thank you to the wonderful Tannie Dalene.

We delivered a successful holiday programme which the facilitators and mentors planned. We also had CRC church and Elrina Fourie of Kinderkinetika who helped with different programmes during this time. A big thank you to those people who reached out to the children during the holiday programme.

Kaylee Ann Buys (Blommie) was promoted to mentor education facilitator. She worked hard to earn the promotion and we are very proud of her. She is an asset to the organisation.

Soezie was employed as a mentor in the beginning of June ‘19. We are very proud of Soezie’s growth. It is reassuring to see where she came from and the responsibility she takes on now. She is very creative with her programmes and she is making an impact on the children in her group.

The parenting department recently employed two new staff members. Linda Mondile and Shila Ntenetyana started working on Monday, 3 June 2019.

Shila Ntenetyana

Linda Mondile

Roslynn and Sheridan attended the Parent Infant Programme Training in Cape Town for 2 weeks. Dr. Mireille Landman and Blanche Rezant were the trainers of this programme.

15 mothers are currently part of the Mamma-Baba (Thula Sana programme). They are receiving visits from Roslynn and Sheridan in Touwsranten, Wilderness Heights, Lancewood and Tura Kina.

Our cook – Pricilla de Swardt’s beautiful new baby boy.

The Sinovuyo Teens programme was completed in May ‘19. Four families completed the programme. They’ve reached their goals and are still using the concepts.

Sheridan and Natasha completed rollout 12 of the Sinovuyo Kids on Thursday, 9 May 2019. The programme ended with three remaining participants of whom one is a male. They reached their goals and are thankful for the influence the programme has on their lives.

On the 18th of April ’19 a report by the ISS was launched about the Afterschool Gamechanger as a violence prevention programme. We are grateful that the report was launched in Touwsranten. There were representatives of SAPS, George Municipality, Touwsranten and Lancewood Primary, the ISS and church leaders present. A wonderful opportunity was created for better co-operation between Seven Passes, the Afterschool Gamechanger team and SAPS.

Investec paid for the kitchen to be remodelled and they donated a jungle gym to our organisation. The staff of Investec donated food, clothes, toys and other valuable items to us. Thank you Investec for your incredible support. You better the lives of these children!

We were invited to represent Seven Passes at the Afterschool Gamechanger Symposium in Cape Town on 7 & 8 June. It was a wonderful event and again we created opportunities to work together with other organisations in future. As a result, a partnership between ourselves and the Department of Culture and Arts is a great possibility.

The entrance to the ASGC Symposium. The stories of Britney Adonis and Susan Agrella for everyone to see.

We will have more wonderful, real-life success stories in our annual report that will be distributed on 30 July 2019.

Please make a note of our Annual General Meeting – 30 July 2019 at the Touwsranten Community Hall at 7pm. You are all invited to attend. We will be sharing the exciting outcome of our four year research study with the University of Cape Town and The Institute for Security Studies.

HELP NEEDED PLEASE:
• We urgently need businesses or individuals who will sponsor a child for 2020 – R180 per child per month.
• We need all your second-hand clothes and homeware to sell on our Market Day that will be held on 1 December 2019 at 7am at the D&M shop.

FINALLY …….. Thank you all for being involved and for caring. We thank you for supporting us in our efforts and helping us to grow in the process.

Wilmi and the Seven Passes Team