Fund Life-Changing Education for 201 African Kids

Dears Supporters,

This year we have continued to support local children and communities through a number of important initiatives supported through the Trust, including our holiday programmes for children in need in local townships. 

Throughout the school year we work with a number of community partners including, tutoring at a local primary school, teaching sports to children, early years education and health initiatives. However, during the school holidays many children do not a safe place to go. Many of the children we work with live in areas affected by high crime, gangs and drug and alcohol issues. Without supervision, the children are very vulnerable and are exposed to these dangerous issues. Therefore, during each term break, we run our holiday programme for local children. This gives the children a safe place to go, provides them with a free meal, engages them with fun and educational activities and provides support around important topics. 

Often children rely on their school for a day time meal, therefore with the support of the Trust, we ensure that the children still receive a free meal each day of the holiday programme. As part of teaching the children the importance of a healthy lifestyle, they are given fruit each day and then take part in our oral hygiene initiative. Many of the children do not own a toothbrush; therefore with the help of donations from the Trust, we provide each child with a toothbrush and teach them the importance of keeping their teeth healthy and clean. The children love getting to practice brushing their teeth each day! 

During the holiday programme, volunteers engage the children in a range of different activities including, literacy and math support, sports, crafts, songs, games and educational activities. The holiday programme is based at a local library, however unfortunately this is often very under resourced. Therefore the Trust provides essential support by helping to provide sports equipment and materials for activities.  

Each school holiday, we focus on different important topics with the children. Recently we have delivered workshops with the children around gangs and drugs. These are issues that many of the children unfortunately have first-hand experience of and often witness within their families and community. The success of these workshops succeeded all of our expectations and received a great response from the children and community partners. The children were not only provided with a safe place to share their experiences, but also learnt more about the topics and worked together with staff and volunteers on ways to choose to alternative paths and make positive choices. As part of these workshops, the children drew and wrote postcards about what they would like for their futures and their communities, with some truly inspirational outcomes! 

With Gratitude,

GB Community