AUGUST 2015 UPDATES.
EDUCATION
Education is the best gift a child can ever have. For this reason, we continue thanking our friends and faithful partners who have in the past years been supportive in ensuring we achieve this goal for our Children. Most of our Children were not able to read or write when they first came to Kwathu. But this is now a different story since our Children started attending a private school and are doing so well. Besides, the Children enjoyed a 3 weeks holiday which was characterized with some fun and recreation activities, see below. Four of our Children were sitting for their provincial mock exams and their results were quite impressive and we are hoping that they work extra hard as they will be sitting for their final exams in a months’ time. For the other Children their results were equally impressive especially for Willard who was lacking behind; his performance has drastically improved. School will reopening on the 31 of August for the third and last term of the year.
During school holidays, the children had an educational tour at the Livingstone museum which is one of the tourist site in the city. This tour was interesting as the Children had an opportunity to learn and understand about their Zambian environment, culture and history before and after independence. There were interesting sections and topics like world life, forestry, politics, social and spiritual life of Zambian people. It was quite educative for the Children to visualize the development from stone age, iron age and now. Sadly, some of our new children it was their first time visiting the Livingstone museum even when they were born here.
On 26 August the older Children had a great time and enjoyed a 4 hours game drive in the Mosi-o-tunya National Park. This game drive was more fun and quite educative for the Children as they learnt more about different animals and the Zambezi river being one of the longest river in Zambia. Later in the day the toddlers went out with the Mamas and had a nice time beside the Zambezi river and visited one of the best Children`s play park around town were they enjoyed loads of childlike games.
SUPPORT
We are so happy and thankful to everyone who has continued being a blessing and playing significant a role in making life better for our Children. Meet Katharina and her mother Else, they are both social workers from Germany. Katharina worked in Uganda as a volunteer in a similar project like Kwathu for a period of seven months. In July She visited and stayed with Kwathu for a week and later joined her mother for holiday. While on holiday the 2 ladies still visited Kwathu regularly and they enjoyed spending time interacting with the Children, blessed them with assorted food items and groceries. They also helped in Celebrating Jeanette’s Birthday. Thank you guys for your help.
We are also grateful for our friends Bob and Marylyn from Canada who constantly remember Kwathu and give as they please. Thank you guys.
SOCIAL
All through this month we have been celebrating birthdays as Kwathu family. Birthdays at Kwathu are always special days filled with so much joy and special memories. What made it more special and interesting this time is that two local gentlemen celebrated their birthdays with the Children on different dates. To begin with, Jackson is a man who went through issues similar to what our children experienced. His humble upbringing made him think of a better way to celebrate his 28th Birthday. God led him to celebrate his Birthday with Kwathu family which was a good decision. Looking at what God has done for him and how much he has achieved now as a Veterinary Doctor, it was worthy to celebrate with a Children’s Home. This was a different but well organized celebration and everyone enjoyed eating yummy food, dancing and spent good time playing with the Children. The birthday man took time encouraging the Children to work hard at school and blessed them with school requirement.
Adrian is a local Youngman working closely with one of the local churches in Livingstone. One of his birthday wish was to celebrate his birthday with these wonderful children which was successful. We all sang happy birthday songs to him and he enjoyed reading out birthday messages from the cards children made for him. All the children enjoyed his two yummy cake, juice and candy. Later on, he enjoyed playing some games with Children and he enjoyed it. We are so grateful for these two gentlemen and may the good Lord bless you all.
Mama Josephine is one of the longest serving house mothers at Kwathu children`s Home. She is a hard working mother and so devoted to her work of caring for our dear Children. We are so happy to have been able to celebrate her 60th Birthday on 10 August and the Children took time making lovely cards for her which she really loved and was blessed with a colorful and yummy cake. Later on some of her Children accompanied her home and they spent some quality time with her in the community which the Children really enjoyed and of course made Mama Josephine happy.
Further on, we celebrated Mama Jeanette`s Birthday Mrs. Agripa Phiri who is also director of Kwathu Children`s Home. Her birthday was celebrated on Tuesday 25 August as she was out on 24 August. She went out giving more time to herself and she later joined everyone for her celebration. This time it was more of a family dinner which was characterized of yummy foods, drinks, and candies for smaller ones and of course a cake. The Children performed a drama which was more fun as we all enjoyed it, Later on a game was played and a winner was given a lolly pop as a gift. The Children took time to make and present birthday cards to her and we all just had a wonderful time. It was during this time that Katharina and her mum said good bye to the Kwathu family it was sad saying good bye but most importantly; we are grateful for their love and the support they rendered to Kwathu during their visit.
In addition, the Children who were accompanied by staff and other visiting volunteers toured the mighty Victoria Falls on the 14 of August. This visit was both more of an education and recreation activity for the Children and it was interesting as it was a first time for some Children to visit the falls. The Children were split into two groups, most of older Children preferred going down to the boiling pot first to crossing the knife bridge and the smaller kids though feeling nervous they still enjoyed crossing the Knife bridge and touring the place around and everyone enjoyed.
Maramba cultural village is one of the tourist sites but also visited more by the local people around Livingstone. It’s a place where traditional dances from all the 10 provinces of Zambia are show cased and on 30 August our Children had a privileged to enjoy the traditional dances show cased and learnt more about their culture.
VOLUNTEERS
Dawn and Hollie were once long term volunteers of Kwathu Home who worked closely and built wonderful relations with our children. When they left Kwathu Home two years ago, it was one sad moment for the children. They had to start learning again how to reconnect and attach themselves to some long term volunteers. Fortunately, once a while there was communication through Skype and Whatsup which helped cementing their relationship. This year Dawn and Hollie decided to come back to Kwathu to visit the little ones and introduce David, Dawn’s husband to the children. But this was not as easy as it was two years ago as most of our children are in preteen stage and more reserved than then. Dawn, Hollie and David spent quality time with the children in creativity, recreation, one on one and took pictures of our children. We are so thankful to them for having spared their time to visit the Children even being out for a long time.
WELFARE
Charity is a beautiful young girl aged 9 years old and has been under our care for a period of one month now. She is getting on well with her new friends in the house and she is slowly fitting in and feels more happy being at Kwathu after what she has been through before kwathu.
For the period of this month two young boys of the same family where admitted to Kwathu Children`s Home through the Livingstone Social welfare. Gift is 8 years and his younger brother James is 2 year 3 months .It still remains sad to see these young Children being victims of neglect and abuse when it`s a right for every child to access proper child care. Nevertheless, these two Children are allegedly been neglected by their mother for some time now. The mother is believed to have been locking up the Children every night until the following morning when she goes out prostituting. Her case is under investigation with relevant authorities. These two siblings are doing well and taking it one day at a time.
Please continue praying with us on these requests
- Pray with us for financial resources to help us accomplish our next goals of the project, which is constructing our administration block.
- Pray with us for our 4 Children who will be sitting for grade 7 exams this coming October.
- Continue praying for courage, faith, wisdom and mostly love that we can accomplish the goals we set for Kwathu and that the children can live, grow and mature in Gods daily goodness and loving kindness.
- We thank you all for your continued love and support towards Kwathu Children’s Home and may the Lord continue to bless you! Matthew 18:5 “And whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name, receives me”.
- We thank all our friends and partners for your prayers, donation and support of any kind to Kwathu. GOD BLESS YOU.
