Beautiful Women's Day Photo

The women from iThemba School in Capricorn were invited to a special afternoon which was followed by an incredible finger lunch which was prepared by the talented staff at the school.

This photo was taken by Taryn Nicholas.

iThemba's new uniforms

The children at iThemba school showed off their new tracksuits this month. The old uniforms were looking well worn and it was time to spruce up these youngsters with a new look this winter. Not only do the kids look smart, the tracksuits are really warm and snug for the late winter chills.

Still next time,

Barbara Meyer, Project Co-ordinator

A special treat for women

Ithemba's Women's day event on Friday was great! Over 50 women which included moms, grannies, staff and special guests attended the special day last Friday. The women were treated to a gift bag full of goodies, poems, songs and special messages to inspire and empower them. Afterwards they were invited to a huge spread of eats prepared by the staff. It was my first event I attended at the school as iThemba coordinator and I was amazed at the talents of each staff member. Well done to everybody. I am so proud to be part of the team.

Until next time,

Barbara Meyer, iThemba project co-ordinator

August update

Ithemba had their monthly staff meeting with Ian and Barbara on Monday. Petra paid us a visit to explain how the KIKUS programme works. And Juanita will be attending the KIKUS seminar in September.
Our children had a visit from Charles Mc Helm from National Sea Rescue Institute who told them the do’s and don’ts of being at the beach. He taught us how to do CPR and the staff and Freddy had a turn to demonstrate on a dummy. The children and staff had such fun today singing along with the piano. Robert came to assess the school to set up security measures.
A friend of Lena, Ricardo Speelman paid us a surprise visit today to play the piano. The children and staff had such fun today singing along with the piano.
Mr Vollenhoven delivered the first sample of the children’s tracksuits as well as samples of the various sizes. We will receive the final sample before placing the order.
Greenpop has decided that they would like to plant some fruit trees in our garden. They would like one of the local news papers to cover the event on Monday 15 August.

July update

July update
We received 60 used tyres from Mike, who has a tyre company in Capricorn. We are hoping to use some of the tyres to make a tunnel for the children to crawl through. Our children are loving the different ways that they can use the tyres. They used it to roll, jump into, jump over and walk across. Here are some pictures of the children having fun using the tyres in different ways.
Shafee, a friend of Juanita, his wife Amirah and their son Sergio Hoosen came to do some community work at school today. Our children were very excited today with the surprise visit from the Hoosen family who brought them each a hot dog, cup cake, cool drink, party pack and a toy.
Visitors
Mark Arendz from edge Training Western Cape paid us a visit to share about their ideas for future workshops. Alex from Cool Maintenance was here to assess the building for repairs to be done, and Thank You to Werner who made a window shield above the kitchen window to keep the rain out.
Upcoming
Staff members, Thandi, Nangi and Emily will be attending the 10 week follow up to the Workshop that they attended earlier in the year.
Charles from Water Wise will visit us from the National Sea Rescue Institute.

iTHEMBA PRINCIPAL REPORT

What's been happening in June

Staff

A huge thank you to the staff and their families who worked so diligently during the preparation and on the day of the bazaar. We had lots of support and positive feedback from our parents. Thandi, Nangi and Emily graduated on Thursday in the wet weather but we all had a wonderful time. The ceremony took place in the Athlone Community Centre on Thursday 16 June from 10H00 to 14H00. The ceremony was interesting, different and also included lunch and a short clip on the significance of June 16.

Highlights

The bazaar was a huge success thanks to everyone for their support and help. The winners of the raffles were Veronica Taarks for the luxury hamper, sponsored by Juanita Langford and Rushdien, Jennifer Heynes for the doll and Rudi Theunissen for the remote control car both gifts sponsored by Pick n Pay Muizenberg.



Martin bought two washing line poles so we now have proper washing lines. Marco brought toner for our printer set up another printer as a scanner so we are now able to scan and print. Willem and Awie came back to seal the roof because of a few leaks in the kitchen. They also replaced the tap at the kitchen sink which has been giving us some trouble for a while.

Children

Our children loved being at school on a Saturday and especially having the jumping castle here. They wanted to know why the jumping castle had to go back. We took advantage of the wonderful weather today and the children loved being outdoors rather than inside. It was another important day on Sunday and the children made father’s day cards. They were very excited with the prospect of making something for their dads.

Visitors

We had a quiet wet short week with very few visitors. Marco and Martin paid their usual weekly visits. Willem and Awie came to do some work. The sisters from Living Hope and the Health Department paid us a visit as well and started on their “catch up” campaign by checking the children’s teeth and measuring their arms to see if they were malnourished

Upcoming

Staff meeting on Wednesday at 16H00 and Parents meeting same day at 17H30.

All the best! Veronica

iTHEMBA PRINCIPAL REPORT

What's been happening in May

Staff
Colin attended a Biodiversity and Forest Ecology workshop at Kirstenbosch Gardens sponsored by Greenpop.org and received a certificate of attendance. Thandi, Nangi and Emily are nearing the end of their 10 week Community Development workshop.They graduate on the 16 June in Athlone. Nangi was assessed for her practical on Tuesday this week and we are proud to say that she came through with flying colours.

Children

Last week we welcomed two new kids to our family, Olothando Mnana in the 5 year old class and Othandwayo Vellem in the Grade R class.

Our see saw looks like a new one thanks to Colin. It continues to be one of the children’s favourite pieces of equipment. Our children are busy with different projects in their classes and the work that they produced is amazing. Below are pictures of Grade R children who made houses, the 5 year olds are busy with ‘shapes and colours’ and the younger class is doing “the sea”.

Visitors

Last week Marco had a lovely surprise for the children on Tuesday when he brought signed Ajax Cape Town posters for each of the them. He was accompanied by Gudrun Thinius who visited the school once before, Sabrina Brix who works at GTS, Anna Hurdesheime and Alyssa Schroder. Derek Naidoo, a well known community worker in Capricorn, came to visit the school and brought two foreign visitors with him. Derek is the organiser of the workshop that our staff is currently busy with. Marco and Ian also came on their weekly visit.

Upcoming

Nangi is being assessed for her level four training on Tuesday next week. We are planning to have a school bazaar at iThemba on Saturday 4 June from 8:30 to 12:00. Donations would be greatly appreciated.

All the best and see you at the bazaar this Saturday!
Veronica

First day at iThemba school for 25 new learners

WE ARE BACK!!!

Our school finally opened again – this time

with 25 new children who have settled in very well and love
their new school and teachers already. The other kids warmly

welcomed their new classmates and are very happy to be back

to school.

We are also happy to introduce our new Grade R teacher

Juanita Langford and our new class assistant Emily Matthews.

We have also welcomed Susanne Winkler from the Lufthansa

HelpAlliance in Cape Town. She assisted the iThemba team

for the past 10 weeks and will be the new representative for

iThemba within the HelpAlliance. This has been a very important

step in our collaboration as we are now more closely linked with

HelpAlliance, opening further fundraising opportunities.
Our iThemba team is now complete and we will work with

full forces to provide quality education for our children.

We also appreciate the help our Caretaker Colin who kept

the school in an excellent condition.

We are looking forward to the upcoming year and many achievements in 2011!

The next iThemba update will only be posted in April.

It is now time for me to finish my Master degree at UCT.

I will join you guys again in a few weeks.

Check out our facebook profile for more pictures http://www.facebook.com/#!/iThembaSchoolCapricorn

Until now, all the best and see you soon!!!

Ciao Marco

Last Blog of the year!!!!

Dear iThemba Family!!!!

I hope you are fully recovered from the Year End Function at the Waterfront….it was a great party indeed!!!! Christmas and New Years Eve are just around the corner and I guess its true that time is flying when you are having fun! We had a wonderful Christmas Party at the School the 8th of December and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you guys for contributing these wonderful shoebox presents for our kids. I was amazed at all the creativity and the artisanship – you truly put a lot of effort in creating these boxes! We also had Santa Claus at iThemba who handed out the presents to the little ones….can you believe their excitement!!!!

It was also time to say “goodbye” to Martin Dyers, who officially retires now. He supported the iThemba school project since 2007 as one of the first iThemba family members. Thank you Martin for your passion, your dedication and your educational expertise!! We wish you all the best for your future endeavors and appreciate your effort to make a difference in the lives of the kids of Capricorn!!

It is amazing what we all have achieved in this year! I just started in July 2010 and am very proud to be a part of this wonderful project!

Together we make a difference and we will keep up the good work!

The school will open again the 17th of January and this time with 75 children!!

I will miss these little rascals but I am sure they are doing just fine and that they enjoy their Christmas and their presents!! This will be the last blog of the year….now don’t be sad!! We will be back next year with more exciting news about iThemba!!!

A wise man once said that nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. I have to say that the iThemba School is a great project and it truly reflects the enthusiasm of all the people involved. I wish everyone of you a happy and peaceful festive season.
Enjoy your life and see you next year!!!

Ciao Marco

Photos: Sorrel Adams

Santa Claus is around the corner!!!

Dear iThemba Family,

Again this week was filled with many happenings and going-ons. Martin Sassenfeld and Kai Schubert paid the kids a visit. They were very impressed by the school and overwhelmed by the kids energy.

The children were also thrilled when they took an excursion to the Capricorn Primary School where a Christmas meal and toys waited for them. Our sincere thanks goes to a Christian organization from the community for this donation!

GREAT!!!! By now my office is filled with shoeboxes from the dedicated GTS Cape Town staff. I was amazed by the creativity of packing and decorating. Once again, it is nice to see the engagement of the office. It is for sure already that the kids are going to love their presents!
We are looking forward to see you at our Christmas party next week Wednesday.

I wish all of you a great weekend!!!!

See you next week....

Bye Marco

OPENING OF THE THIRD CLASS

YES WE CAN!!!!



Dear All...

We are very happy to announce that we will open our third class in 2011!!

Veronica and Martin are busy talking to parents and recruiting additional 25 children for next year! It has been a long and challenging process and everybody is very happy that our school can be extended in 2011 in order to continue our good work and to provide proper education for additional 75 children from the Vrygrond community!

On behalf of the iThemba School and the children I would like to invite you to our

Year End Party the 8th of December 2010 at the school.

Our children will receive their X-Mas presents and sing the songs they have rehearsed for the last weeks. This will be a great opportunity to meet the kids, the parents and to visit our school! We look forward seeing you!
Come and celebrate with us on Wednesday the 08.12.2010 from 10.00 – 12.00 at the iThemba School of Capricorn.

Have a great weekend – Ciao Marco

Santa Shoebox Initiative

You might have guessed by the X-mas decorations everywhere

and the tenacity of the radio stations to play ”Last Christmas”

since October already that.........Santa Claus is around the corner!!!!

Here is a little update of what is going to happen in December!!

• We will organize a year end party for our kids at the school the 8th of December. They also will receive their first school certificates.

• At the 25th of December there will be the Christmas Concert. Our children are already practicing their songs for the big day. We will have snacks and supplies at the school and Santa Claus will be there as well to give our little ones their presents!!!!

• Many of our kids come from very poor families and might not get any presents for Christmas. Therefore we will have a Santa Shoebox initiative where we, with the help of the GTS Cape Town employees, prepare a gift box per kid to give them a nice Christmas surprise that every child deserves!!!

We start next week and i will keep you posted as usual.
Enjoy your weekend!!!!

Ciao Marco

Dr. Huber Visit

Dear iThemba Family

This week has been a very special one for us!

iThemba receiveda visit from Dr. Reinhold Huber –

Vice President of Lufthansa Customs Relation Management Sales

and Birgit Thümecke – Managing Director GTS Group.

Both are truly dedicated to our school and have

been

supporting

iThemba since day one.

Dr. Huber was impressed and very satisfied with the positive developments at our school. His last visit was at the schools inauguration in March and since then a lot has changed.

The English skills of our children have greatly improved within such a short amount of time. Furthermore Dr. Huber was delighted with the behavior and manners of our iThemba kids.

Again a big thank you to our school staff! All our visitors are very inspired by the great job you are doing every day!!!

I wish you a great weekend !!!

Ciao Marco

More GTS offices get involved!!!!

Good news from overseas!!

The managing director of GTS Melbourne

Michaela Kaim-Schoby and her husband

Andreas Kaim paid us a visit and donated among

other things our much needed water play!!!!

They truly enjoyed the visit as you can see in the pictures and admired the work

our staff is doing!

A big thank you for the steady interest in our project and it is nice to see that more GTS offices get involved!!

With GTS Melbourne we have another loyal supporter of our school with an iThemba group and iThemba anchor persons who will organize fundraisers and events at their office!!!

Ithemba sais thank you Melbourne and keep up the good work !!!

Furthermore we finally have our much needed Registration Certificate and are now busy applying for state subsidy!!!

As you see we are on the right path and our children are doing better every day!

With your help and the involvement of GTS offices we can achieve great things!!!!!

Have a great weekend and some of you I might see at the LOB Braai on Saturday…
Ciao Marco

Ithemba Milestone!!!!

DEAR ITHEMBA FAMILY

Great things are happening at the moment and we are all very pleased with the progress of our school. After months of hard work and numerous inspections there is light at the end of the tunnel!!

We’ve had our final inspection by the Department of Social Development and will receive our Certificate of Compliance next week. The four officials inspecting the school last week were very impressed by the facilities.

They loved how the school has developed in such a short amount of time.
With the Certificate iThemba will be a fully registered institution. This is a big milestone for us and enables us to apply for State Subsidizations of 12 Rand per kid a day!!!

Great thanks goes to our school facilitator Martin Dyers for his effort and the endless hours of dealing with government officials!!

The Fire and Rescue Department also paid us a visit this week and gave the kids a Fire Demo.

At the end they were all taken for a ride in a Fire Truck around Capricorn. Can you imagine their excitement!!!

The spirits at iThemba are high and we are looking forward to a bright future for our school and our kids.

As usual I will keep you posted.

For now I wish you a great weekend…

Enjoy life, enjoy nature, go out and smile more!!!

Ciao Marco