Whose life am I influencing??

The other day I had an interesting experience just outside the LETCEE offices. A young teenager greeted me saying, "Hallo Aunty Cezanne, how are you?" Her face looked vaguely familiar so I stopped and chatted to her asking about school and life in general. It was a really great experience, however afterwards I was trying to figure out who she was and where she knew me from.

A few days later I realized that she was one of the Buddies who had left the programme but it got me to thinking...
How many people's lives do we influence on a daily basis positively and sometime negatively?
Are we always aware of the influene that we have?

This experience has made me take greater note of how I act and how I treat people as you never know what an impact you can have.

36 new Buddies...wow!!

In April this year we had to say good bye to 36 of our Buddies as they had reached the cut off age of 15 years. It was a bittersweet farewell as we had grown close to many of them over two and half years but we were also excited at how far they had come and excited of the prospect of the new Buddies we were going to meet.

So....with more than 50 percent of our Buddies being new to the programme we decided to have two full day workshops with the Buddies in the June/July holidays. We used the training manual that we developed for Unicef last year.

It was a great two days where LETCEE staff got to meet new children and the Buddies, from two different communities made a lot of new friends...

I am so excited to see the journey that these Buddies walk in over the next couple of years. What a privilege to be involved in the lives of these young men and women!!

Official Opening of Sikhulakahle Toy Library

Wow! I can't believe that almost 3 weeks have passed since the Toy Library was officially opened. I remember thinking on the day that I had better write about it and then, as is the nature of all NGO's I became busy with so many other things.

What a journey the development of the Sikhulakahle Toy Library has been. What an adventure!! When the container finally arrived in April last year I think we all thought that we would have the Toy Library up and running in no time. A year and a bit later we can now say it is officially open and being enjoyed by many childern in the Mbuba community.

As is the case when working with communities, processes happen slowly, from building the roof over the top to electing a Toy Librarian to painting the Toy Library.

I must say that I am encouraged by the many people who donated their time, effort and expertise to make this dream a reality! It has been a frustrating but rewarding journey and now that it is being used by the community I am ready to take on the process again in another community...