UPDATED October 6, 2009

BY The TDA Team

IN South American Epic

no comments

UPDATED October 6, 2009

BY The TDA Team

IN South American Epic

no comments

Good Deeds

As I cycle through South America, I am hoping to raise money for the Bulungula Incubator project in South Africa….  a sustainable development project aimed at uplifiting poverty in the community by addressing health, education and building small enterprises in the remote village. One of the key projects is the development of the Jujurha Early Learning Centre, for which some of the money raised will support.  I received a recent update of the community celebration which is a huge inspiration for me as we enter the second half of the trip….more details of the projects can be found on www.bulungulaincubator.org

Dear Tiffy Thanks so much for your updates – your trip sounds incredible!! I thought you’d like to see some pics of our recent community celebration – for the official launch of the preschool and library. It was fantastic! There must have been over 400 people there, with loads of food, traditional dancing and singing and much ululating!! We organized to have a DVD made of the event (which includes footage of a ‘normal’ day at the preschool and some info on the area). I’ll load this onto our blog as soon as it has been edited. In the meantime, here’s a taste….
 
The beginnings of our beautiful library – which is already being used by the kids daily. We were still cutting and hanging shelves hours before the launch and the arrival of the funders!
 
The women preparing the food – which included 140kg of meat and which was all polished off! It was fantastic to have such a competent catering team. All we had to do was provide the food and they took care of the rest.


The day opened with the preschool kids singing four VERY cute songs. They’d been practicing for weeks and it was delightful!
 
The audience – the preschool verandah created a wonderful stage setting.
 
Kids from the local primary school (and all of the teachers) were there. They’d prepared some fabulous dancing which had the crowd going mad!
And one of the women from the village wrote a poem which her daughter recited as a praise song – we are having it translated and printed. It was very moving.
 
There were also lots of speeches, including the two sub-headmen, the ELC community committee and a traveling salesman (could only happen in this crazy place!) who pitched in when we invited anyone else to say anything. Very amusing! And he actually made a rather good speech.
And of course, it wouldn’t be the same without a few crises – including the fact that we managed to get the car stuck on the morning of the launch and some of our funders had to wait for 1.5 hours at the Bulungula store! And we forgot to defrost the meat the night before and so had to resort to using chisels, hammers, handsaws and a jigsaw (I kid you not!) to cut up the VERY solid mutton. It was a unique team building exercise which was disgusting and hilarious in equal measure (I’ll spare you the pictures!). All in all, great fun!!! Thanks so much for your support.
 Warm regards, Sonja.

The Bulungula Incubator is a Not-for-Profit organisation.
Our vision is to be a catalyst in the creation of vibrant and sustainable rural communities.
www.bulungulaincubator.org
Ph: 047 577 8900/1 Cell: 082 870 7345 Fax: 086 650 6373

  – Natasha Barker

Leave a Comment for "Good Deeds"

Your Email address will not published. Required fields are marked

REGISTER NOW!