Planning (All)
Veterinary Assistance Teaching
Girl Impact Street Sports Tournament
Over 30's Peninsula Projects
Sports Development OVC: Fikelela
OVC: Home from Home GAPA
AVG TEMP:
23 ˚C
WHAT’S NEW ON THE GROUND?
LANGUAGE LESSON: Xhosa: ‘uthando’ means LOVE
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Volunteer Coordinator, Leo, returned from helping our friends at our project base in St Lucia, South Africa. We said a sad farewell to staff member Erin after 6 months with us. A new project launched – stay tuned to hear more about the Social Impact Experience in 2018!
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Boasting more volunteer numbers than ever before, our Girl Impact program is booming and now means we can run it full-time, opposed to part-time. The increase in volunteer numbers also meant we were able to offer one-on-one sessions with participants at our art club this quarter, and even try partner art therapy techniques!
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We welcomed our first full-time Girl Impact volunteers, meaning we were able to continue partner yoga and healthy mind and body workshops across primary schools in Cape Town’s township communities.
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Our sports program finished the year with a bang as our volunteers were busy with our annual Street Sports Tournament. The tournament ran for 7 weeks and saw over 200 competitors battle it out on the streets of three communities across Cape Town. Including both cricket and soccer, boys and girls and enthusiastic coaches and community members, the tournament was a huge success! THANK YOU to all who donated generously for this event. We are already looking forward to the 2018 tournament.
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Volunteers were also able to join in on a beach cricket tournament in the coastal town of Muizenberg! Drawing over 500 children far and wide for a day of competitive fun in the sun, this was the last day of project for the year and it couldn’t have ended better!
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Children in the emergency foster care home we partner with were assessed on their developmental milestones. On average, children showed an increase of 3.7 milestones, which is incredible. Volunteers were working hard to ensure that children struggling with either fine or gross motor skills had one-onone attention to get them over the line by the end of the year.
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To celebrate the end of the year, sports volunteers were able to take the foster care children on an exciting outing to a sports stadium. Rarely are the young children of the center able to head out of the center, so to have the chance to run around in a large venue and play some games was incredible.
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It was an exciting end to a big year for our long-term foster care teens. The majority of the year was spent focusing on completing The President’s Award (similar to the Duke of Edinburgh award). After a big commitment from volunteers, staff and teens, an award ceremony was held to congratulate teens on how much they had achieved. The ceremony involved a talent show and presentation of certificates – foster parents in attendance were very proud, as were we!
“I have had an amazing experience with African Impact. All the staff members are really nice and all the projects have been amazing. African Impact really thinks about every little thing that they do and they really try to help you get the best out of your experience.” – Levi De Jong, Orphan & Vulnerable Care + Girl Impact
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Volunteers helped teachers at 2 preschools complete assessments of Grade R learners. The results showed 39% of children could identify the numbers 1-10, 17% could successfully identify 10 letters, 28% could identify 5 basic shapes and 45% could identify seven colors. This data will help volunteers plan more school readiness lessons with teachers in 2018 to improve these figures.
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The end of the year ended on a high with Grade R graduation. It was particularly special for African Impact to be invited to speak at the graduation ceremony and to join in the celebrations with children, parents and teachers.
The Rugby 7’s is a prominent feature on international sporting calendars and Cape Town was proud to be home of the tournament in December. Our team and final volunteers of the year were thrilled to get amongst the crowds and festivities and attend this twoday sporting extravaganza!
“My experience with this inspiring organization was out of this world. Within weeks I felt a bond with people that usually takes months, even years, to build.” - Theo, UK