Hlanganani Newsletter June 2022

It’s June and we are steaming along merrily. The whole team have been out there helping all the children be warm for winter, clothed for school, fed with the right things and generally behaving themselves!!!

They are heading into their June holidays where we have job shadowing and entrepreneurship drive lined up. Our children filled in a form and requested their top job to shadow. Chartered accountants, lawyers, chefs, dentists, canine training, and professional nurse, have all offered to host our children.

We have a magnificent donation of toilet paper, the kids get the first pack free. They then ‘buy’ the next pack and so on to make themselves some profit – pocket money. The money we get, goes towards transport of the kids, to and fro from mentoring and tutoring. Speaking of which …

This is the report from the Grays about the tutoring and mentoring:

“Educating all of our children must be one of our most urgent priorities. We all know that education, more than anything else, improves our chances of building better lives.”
– Nelson Mandela

At Hlanganani, we strive to give our children the best chance to succeed. One of the main factors is helping them with their educational journey in regards to school supplies, fees, clothes, and tuition needs. Sadly, within the South African government education system, only 55 % of children who enter school end up passing matric; a staggering 45% either fail or drop out of school – we desire for all of our children to pass!

However, many of our Hlanganani children are failing or struggling with crucial subjects, specifically Maths and English. Therefore, we felt it was imperative to intercede to help our children have a successful school experience. As the old African proverb says, “It takes a village to raise a child” therefore, we reached out to our “village” – the wonderful men and women of Junction Church and others within our local community to help rectify this matter. After going through an interview process, we were highly encouraged to have a group of volunteers commit to tutoring the children twice a month after our bimonthly mentorship groups on Sunday afternoons.

As a baby must first learn to crawl before it can walk effectively, so our tutoring program has slowly gotten up and “walking”, with a few kinks we are working out on the way. Tutors of every level are invaluable – if you know how to read and can sit and listen to a 7-year-old read, that is perfect, as is working with high schoolers on their math, English, and science questions. No matter one’s level of knowledge, it is priceless to have volunteers willing to give their time and expertise to help our children learn and grow.

If you are interested in helping us tutor the children, please contact Ryan Gray at 081-003-6143 alternatively, if you wish to support the tutoring program with a donation towards transport fees, every cent counts and is much appreciated!

Mentoring

Here at Hlanganani, a significant amount of our children are teenage girls! Therefore, over the last couple of months, we have been working on talking to them about all things related to the ups and downs of being a teenager. They have highly valued having a safe space to ask their questions and have been more engaging than ever before! Specifically, discussions on relationships, sex, caring for their bodies, and how they conduct themselves. The girls were initially asked to write down any questions on the above subjects; many of the questions were on sex and their menstrual cycle, and how it all works.

We were more than happy to teach them about safe sex, abstinence, etc. as in South Africa, this is no subject to shy away from, given that in 2020 there were 136,386 babies born to girls aged between 10 to 19; this number is staggeringly high, especially given the number of abortions that were also documented for girls ages 10-13.

Please pray that our teenagers will make wise choices to practice being safe and thoughtful in how they conduct themselves and know that they are loved by God and do not need physical approval from man. Ryan also is mentoring the boys on the importance of being men of integrity and making wise relationship choices. We would also like to thank Mercy Chikwanda for giving of her time to talk to the girls from her training course on “Inner & Outer Beauty.”

Maybe you ask about the children that have left school and what they are up to? Here are a few introductions;

Hi I’m Mandy I was introduced to Bonnie by my sister’s school and she started helping us when I was doing grade 9 she takes care of our basic needs and I completed my matric last year. I couldn’t go to university this year so she gave me options of the things that I can do throughout the year, I’m currently doing an online course at the School of Entrepreneurship Mastery Programme and if I get accepted at university for next year then I will go to university next year.

I am Thato Makale from Cosmo City Extension 4, Age of 22 years old. Next month it’s my birthday month. I am currently a student at southwest Gauteng college Technisa Campus studying office administration NQF level 4.

Sometimes things happen to get you on a wheelchair it’s a critical difficult long story I can share. In 2009, I was able to walk like any person could walk and now I am wheelchair-bound. I managed to move on, and I’ve adopted the life, through sport, from my special school called west rand school in 2012 where mostly, it’s a disability school, it has physiotherapists, doctors, nurses and more alternative health devices for benefitting the disabled. During that time my parents were there, but God took them away, now I am alone living with my grandmother.

Today, as a founder of the wheelsLife wheelchair basketball team, my portfolio as a founder is mostly looking for sponsorship and investment opportunities.

The main reason why I started this team was to make sure that people around the community can recognize and get used to disabled people. This is because there are too many challenges that we are facing as disabled people for e.g., let me say u are using public transport some people would say words that are unexceptional to say when you trying to climb up to get inside the bus…
“They would say to you, you can’t do it yourself, you can’t be here and get any help to go with you.”

My name is Gift Nkabinde Hlanganani has been in my family since 2005 if I remember correctly till to date. I will be forever grateful to all the Hlanganani team and everyone who keeps the organization going because Hlanganani brings life and hope to Orphans. Hlanganani helped me to finish matric and now I’m working and independent.

For the past 3 years, l have been working as a full-time employee with Champagne Valley Trading, a flour distribution company that serves Gauteng province.

I am employed as a driver and l manage the warehouse, and count and distribute the products. The skills l gained from Hlanganani has empowered me to be where l am, 2 years after matric I’ve volunteered as a home base carer, as I felt we really need more men to come forward and become icons and fathers, that they also wish they had.

My work duties required more attention, so I withdrew from being a HBC but I am still in good contact with most of the Hlanganani boys. I now have a responsibility to see that production goes well and products are delivered on time and received in order. Also, l have good public relations with the customers we serve, which reveals that l work well with my co-workers and obey the authority. Working here has developed my public relations.

Hlanganani is the root of what I’ve become today. Hlanganani values taught us to put God first.

Here is an introduction to one of our team:

I’m Langa – a third-year Accounting & Taxation student, who is passionate about social media, marketing & branding! I also run my own company, Lali Makhalima Co., but my main function at Hlanganani lies in social media management & content creation.

I’m the creative mind behind what you see online, visually & I just love putting everything together so it’s cohesive & accurately reflects the organisation’s mission, vision & heart.