 I have a dream
In February 2017 a group of seven volunteers from All Saints Church Fulham [(went to Amasango Career School in Grahamstown to volunteer as classroom assistants for two weeks. Amasango Career School Amasango is a school for children with special needs, typically they will have dropped out of school for a period and have little or no parental or family involvement or guidance in their lives. With help from a charity in the UK the children receive three meals a day, a food parcel for weekends, uniform, clothing and the care of a dedicated student support assistant who ensures health and social needs are met. The school is always keen to welcome volunteers who are especially useful when it comes to learning and practising English. The school fills in the gaps in a learners’ education as quickly as it can so they can progress to high school. It’s quite good at this and very roughly half of the pupils achieve this. Those that don’t have learnt to read and write and to speak English. Noticing the obvious Our volunteer group comprised clergy, two youth workers, a school nurse, two teachers and a builder. For the most part the group members found a role, but Ade – the builder – struggled. While he was trying to make himself useful he noticed something rather obvious: that whereas half the school population (give or take) were going on to high school, half weren’t and this worried him. Of course, this isn’t a criticism, merely an observation. The school’s resources are spread very thin, and, miraculously, the principal has found room in the budget, as well as room in a crowded school site, to start a skills workshop. There’s a pottery at the school as well, but learners have an hour at best there in a week. In neither case is there enough time to develop a skill competently. Ade had a dream As Ade gazed through the wire fencing of the school he dreamed of building workshops on the empty land next to the school, bringing a team from the UK to work on the construction alongside the older pupils from the school so they could learn skills in a hands-on way. Then running workshops for the learners at Amasango and for others in the afternoons once school is finished for the day. It’s a great vision, and it is not going to turn out exactly as dreamed, but it’s a good starting point, and we shall see as time goes on how much of it we can realise together.
0 Comments
So, we are planning a big fundraiser. A supporter who has worked in fundraising for major charities offered her help in organising a Call my Bluff wine-tasting event.
So who remembers the old TV programme with Patrick Campbell? Basically three contrasting descriptions of the same wine are given by a panel of experts and teams guess – work out on the basis of their wine-tasting skills – which is correct. It's great fun with a lot of laughs to be had. But it's more than this, we have a growing list of raffle prizes and auction lots, which is where the headline of this blog comes in. We've found that you have only to ask and people will donate generously, we have had cases of wine and weeks in various holiday rental homes donated as well as pair of hand-knitted socks. We've been promised enough bread from an artisan baker for the evening, and one of the trustees wives is cooking up a batch of chutneys to go with the cheese that another trustee hopes to have donated. We are very lucky to have such support and are grateful to those who have donated so far and those who have yet to donate. Come and join us on Friday 8 November at the London Canal Museum. You can buy tickets at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/khanya/269333# |