2024-12 Christmas & Year in review
Thanks to our Sponsors!
"Your generosity is a testament to humanity’s capacity for compassion and the difference it can make in the lives of others. We are honoured to have you as a partner in our mission, and grateful for your unwavering support."
As we reflect on the journey of 2024, our hearts overflow with gratitude to our sponsors who have been our pillars of support. Your generosity has not only sustained us but also empowered us to impact countless lives of underprivileged children and youth in South Africa. Your belief in our mission inspires us every step of the way. Through your kindness and commitment, we have uplifted families at risk, instilled hope from hopelessness, and created continuing change. Thank you for standing by us through every challenge and achievement. Your support is a treasured gift.
2024 Year in Review
The year brought the normal challenges that face all NGO’s – primarily operating stresses due to limited available finances. This is exacerbated by predictably unpredictable incidents living at the edge of ‘normal society’. Poverty? Yes, however sometimes it is better just to roll up one's sleeves to lighten the social and economic burdens experienced by children in poverty’s crosshairs. At the end of another year, BCDT volunteers are tired, yet satisfied Satisfied from lessons learned, and from victories earned.
There are so many triumphs to mention, however, I will share a few highlights:
- The amazing ‘soup kitchen’ that never stops giving basic sustenance.
- Transport, water, clothing, cleaning materials, and electricity.
- No drop-outs this year from our inner core high school scholars, a huge achievement for BCDT.
- No suicides or attempted suicides.
BCDT volunteers are at the coalface and witness the dark side and complexities of people trapped economically and emotionally. Our tears are not for half full stomachs but for the injustices spawned by poverty. An inadequate health system that causes us to say farewell to loved ones far too soon and too often. They witness cruelty meted out on loved ones. Yet against this bleakness, they also witness incredible levels of compassion and sharing.
Holidays are here!
Holidays 2024
And now, it is HOLIDAYS!!! Christmas at last. A truly magical time of the year. We can let our hair down, switch on that African beat and stomp those feet on Mother Africa’s bare soil. Christmas camping - fighting for designated tents, and preferred tent-mates. Laughter and campsite banter fill the air till 3 AM. Marshmallows all over our faces. Cooking huge pots over the fire. A campfire-cooked breakfast. Hiding when the managers call us for litter. Cookies, gingerbread cakes, presents, no school times, sleeping late!
Because it is holidays!
Enjoying South African braai’s, irrelevant chatter about our wonderful home, BCDT and equally wonderful country. Shopping! For something other than mealie meal, onions and salt. Fighting for a space on the Christmas shopping bus. Join the spontaneous giggles and squeals of the small ones, celebrating nothing other than the happiness of life. Let off Christmas crackers and hide before someone reports us. Make a special sauce for the dogs. Keep a smile for our most irritating family members. Decorate our bedrooms, switch on those lights and feel that inner child joining the festivities. Use only Christmas currency for all the festivities, LOVE! This is our payment and gratitude for reaching December, alive and happy. As we lie down in our tents squashed up like sardines, a smile of satisfaction on our faces, a quick thought or remembrance for loved ones gone, we feel a comforting hand pushed into ours. The Christmas lights flickering on our faces as we fall asleep, anticipating tomorrow. Please add to our joy by sending us extra money for all the above fun, Xmas presents and for extra goodies.
School Improvements
Our private nonprofit village school, MGS, which falls under BCDT, is 35 years old, and showing its age. This season the school received a well-deserved face lift from the KLM Airline’s “Wings of Support”. This is the 6th successful project with KLM. Phase 1 has just been completed - a school reception, a headmaster's office, a boardroom, a teacher's room, toilet and painting of the classrooms. Phase 2 will follow, which is the furnishing of the office block and school furniture. The headmaster, teachers and scholars are so grateful!
The school (government category A – “serving the poorest of the poor”) provides a solid and safe foundation for the vulnerable kids we serve, through grade 9. News from government schools makes for grim reading. A recent journalism piece from News 24 reports that many schools are no longer safe areas, especially for female children and teachers. Rapes, murders and assaults abound.
Botshibelo Grade 9 class of 2024 - best of luck!
This is why we need the school financed because it is an integral part of the BCDT’s cycle from young to self-reliance. We need teachers to receive higher renumeration to move from volunteer to fully paid educators, this will ensure that we can pay for the level of excellence and quality of teaching that the children need.
And what of life after Grade 9?
After grade 9, students can continue on to another school to obtain grade 12 matriculation, or leave school and get a job. Those village students who continue on to other schools receive tutoring and assistance by our team to ease the transition. We are pleased to report there were no drop-outs this year in our grades 10-12 students!
However, many students come from difficult and traumatic backgrounds, and further schooling is not feasible. There are some government-run vocational skills schools. In practice however, these schools are few in number, poorly funded, and mismanaged. Grade 9 school leavers who remain unskilled face a bleak future in a country where half of the population under 25 years old are unemployed. Frustrated youth, lacking genuine skills and opportunities, often fall into criminal activity and substance abuse.
Containers of Hope
BCDT is excited to introduce Containers of Hope, an innovative vocational and skills training program for post-grade-9 students. We are planning to begin this program in early 2025.
Our goal at BCDT is to create a small industrial park consisting of shipping containers equipped with appropriate training tools to teach targeted job skills. A paid teacher will teach useful skills which are in local demand. Following training, students can remain in BCDT and open their own shop, or go elsewhere to ply their newly acquired trade.
And opportunities do exist. BCDT is surrounded by farms and a tourist belt, where entry-level jobs are available. Students can train in the hospitality or agricultural arena, or choose to develop a gift they have demonstrated. The key is they can exercise some choice over their future career direction.
Some areas of training that suit both our location and surrounding environs:
Training: hairdressing, sewing, tailoring, beautician i.e. nails.
Farming: work with power tools, glass cutting and placement, fence building, locksmithing, animal husbandry. An example is to set up a hammermill in a container, where corn can be crushed and sold in small amounts to the surrounding communities, as most retailers do not cater for poorer consumers who live from day-to-day.
Financial lectures: teaching strategies around money systems and how poorer youth can learn strategies to maximise their gain.
Hospitality: cooking, pastries, scullery, waitrons, front desk, cleaning, drivers, etc.
Thapelo, our self-trained cobbler. With better training his future would be brighter.
A little of this is already happening organically. BCDT has a self-taught cobbler who repairs and restores footwear. Youth who do hairdressing, child-care, and tailoring under trees. These activities can be encapsulated into a small industrial park adjacent to the school.
We regard this project as crucial for BCDT to complete its cycle of youth development. Without the ability to earn a livelihood, all our promises of possibility and hope ring hollow. We cannot continue to lose the lucrative human capital that may go to waste in a lifetime of poverty.
After 35 years of providing education, we believe BCDT can safely extend our services beyond our current initial phases. BCDT has the experience, management, champions, and legal status to provide this vocational training for disadvantaged youth to become self-reliant.
Please consider sponsoring some aspect of helping our youth reach financial self-sufficiency.
Nutritional supplement E-Pap
Vontobel from Switzerland will once again sponsor the E-Pap project for a seventh year. Thank you to the Vontobel Foundation executives, and the E-pap producers Rose and Dan. Another powerful network of humanitarian partnerships.
E-pap, a powerful nutritional formula, comes in a small 20g packet. Mixed with water, it provides all the daily requirements of vitamins and minerals. E-pap is produced in South Africa. They provide nutritional intervention for underprivileged children throughout South Africa. BCDT has witnessed a huge change in the scholars, especially reduced lethargy and improved concentration and behaviour. We provide everyone at BCDT with a daily supply, and a double dose for those with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or other chronic disease.
WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene)
Our WASH situation for the villagers remains temporally critical. The Mogale Municipality, BCDT’s provider, has 22 pump stations that are either partially or completely broken. These broken wastewater treatment pumps spew raw sewage through and around people's homes in the townships surrounding us. Faeces push up through pipes; Inadequate cleaning with mops and brooms leads to a litany of health problems especially for children, disabled citizens, the elderly and pregnant mothers. The main municipal water pipe providing BCDT with fresh water has been switched off. The tanks in the village are filled by water trucks once a week, leaving BCDT with a huge water deficit. We are hoping that administration will sort out their problems. Fortunately, the one borehole and the waterwheel in the village provide some relief.
Pool Repair
A shout out to the three sponsors who provided finances to repair BCDT’s pool in time for summer. After the initial repair, sadly, a small tremor left two cracks on the sides of the pool. Fortunately, two large, warm-hearted sponsors provided additional funding to repair it again. We are now back on track; the children’s frustration and irritation quickly forgotten amidst the cavorting splashing throng.
Happy kids rejoice - the pool is ready to go again!
The Norwegian Experience
– History and legacy
The “Norwegians” are our serendipitous family from Norway, who arrived at BCDT unintentionally over 20 years ago, while on a visit to sing for Mandela and Bishop Tutu, amongst other activities. A Norwegian orthopaedic surgeon who was assisting BCDT told a member of the visiting Norwegian group about the organization, and this amazing man, Thomas, decided to include a visit to BCDT in their itinerary. Their visit was indeed timely – BCDT was, at the time, dealing with overwhelming physical and social needs – an exploding HIV/AIDS crisis, dying parents and children, waves of people needing assistance, and lack of food, medicine and support.
Long story short, BCDT was “adopted”; thus began their ongoing sponsorship which extends to financial, physical, emotional and social assistance. The Norwegian sponsors have provided necessary infrastructure to rear a child from womb to the workplace. In between funerals, operations, emergency funds and emotional support. It was an organization that collaborated with BCDT management to volunteer and participate as proxy parents. The village knows them simply as ‘The Norwegians’, a phrase that belies their importance and enormous humanitarian contribution to at-risk children.
An Incredible Trip to Norway
The four BCDT ambassadors to Norway - Sissy, Michael, Lerato and Nicole
On behalf of BCDT, our deepest thanks to the Norwegian Choir, and every individual who embraced Nicole, Sissy, Lerato and Michael on their recent trip to Norway. In addition, for the tickets, accommodation, food and hospitality and care.
BCDT also thanks Kari, from Kronsberg (near Oslo) who also sponsored the Norwegian trip and hosted Lerato and Sissy, who volunteered for two weeks after leaving their Norwegian friends and family in Bergen. Kari is a high school teacher at the International school, who in the past brought Norwegian Grade 12 volunteers to BCDT. It was always a life changing experience for the Norwegian youth, as well as the BCDT youth who hosted them.
A rich heritage - BCDT founders Con & Marion (top), daughter and grandson Nicole and Michael (bottom)
The visits by BCDT to Norway and vice versa, when possible, are at intervals for a group of Botshibelians to ‘report back’ and meet with their management and financial committee. In turn the BCDT ambassadors are unreservedly, ‘spoilt’, enjoying outings, hiking, and other Nordic tourist attractions.
Every day, a team of Norwegians prepared a delicious breakfast and supper. This was an enormous privilege for youth who grew up on a sparse diet as they dealt with daily village duties and crisises. In return, Michael, with the help of Sissy and Lerato, was determined not to leave any Norwegian, regardless of age, unable to move to African beats and music. They proved that Norwegians can do African. The South African group experienced an amazing scenic train trip across country to Kronsberg before flying back to South Africa. Nicole and Michael returned a week earlier for work.
Thus, the visit was a huge success. Notable take-aways included the managers’ astonishment at how hard the Norwegians work, contradicting the view that only rich retired citizens provide sponsorship. That the youth have varied jobs. That ‘old’ people can be as healthy, active and exciting as 30-year-olds. This was astonishing to ambassadors, since at home, poverty and poor medical support drastically reduces life spans and healthy senior years.
Consistent insights brought home: ‘There are so many healthy elderly’, ‘They don't think they are better because they have money', 'they are so loving, caring and respectful’, ‘they don’t litter’, ‘We ate so well’.
Welcome home - Back from an incredible Norwegian trip!
The managers have come home changed, more mature, more introspective and more appreciative. The BCDT ambassadors are from the ‘cream’ - youth who grew up in Botshibelo, who have assisted and participated in the joys, celebrations and sorrows of growing up in poverty, despite their own early life traumas. Michael is the great grandchild of the founder members Con and Marion, who has attended our school, worked with the youth and children at risk, and remains committed to a humanitarian lifestyle. Nicole accompanied the three youth and provided for their well-being, emotional balance and general etiquette during their trip. She also helped with the reverse culture shock of returning home with an underlying sadness from missing the gentleness, love and respect shown so consistently throughout their stay (and obviously the choice of food!). It was interesting to note the youth group identified what was important – namely respect, kindness, love, work ethic and litter – before the food. Perhaps a lesson for all adults.
For the Norwegian group, and each individual, please know you touched them deeply, left an indelible imprint, and gave our youth emotional strength to face the next crisis.
Snakes!
Due to heavy rains this past season, snake sightings have trebled. We teach children how to identify snakes, and to medicate the non-venomous ones. Years back, one child suffered a fatal cobra bite; fortunately this incident has not been repeated. The animal outreach is growing exponentially, taking their place in the queue for food and care. We said goodbye to beloved pets that died. The children’s grief is deep and real, but can be a learning experience, preparing them for the more catastrophic future deaths of family and friends.
Domestic Abuse
Domestic abuse continues to happen far too frequently, often with children witnessing the abuse, or being victims to it. An over-extended police force cannot manage all their service calls, with BCDT often being on the bottom of an unspoken triage system. This gives perpetrators time to dissuade their victims from opening a case. BCDT’s management team focus the majority of their effort on physical abuse cases, crime, hunger, housing security, health access, education, burials, pet and environmental protection.
Heartache and sadness perennially permeate our lived experience in the village. Our managers struggle to maintain their tears at many of the stories, particularly for those who suffered the same fate as young children. Women and children remain the most vulnerable in our society especially young girls and boys who are raped.
The reason we would like to retell a recent upsetting incident is to show the type of issues that we face. (Trigger alert: this story is not for sensitive readers or who have suffered the same fate). An 8-year old girl reported to us that her aunt's live-in boyfriend had been sexually abusing her for more than two years, and that she was too frightened to tell her aunt. She phoned her mother who demanded from her ‘why are you doing this?’ The aunt also claimed she was lying. We called Child Protection, who were wonderfully compassionate, and protected her from the aunt. But after Child Protection left, we learned the child was back at the aunt’s home in the village. The mother said that the police investigation was ongoing but the doctor who examined her could find no physical damage or evidence, hence the boyfriend was never arrested.
When we spoke to the girl again, she repeated the same story, and said the abuse had occurred as recently as the past week. The child appeared so sad and abused that the management met, expelled the perpetrator from the village, and forced the aunt to apologize to the girl. But damage has been done. Though the monster has been removed, he may never be expelled from her tender mind and psyche, leaving lasting scars.
The bright side to this story, if there is one, is that the girl decided to come forward, albeit not immediately, because of BCDT’s rigid education on resilience, diversity, and gender equality. We teach kids it is their birthright to create their own futures. Without this education and mindset, nothing would change, and abuse would never be addressed.
Thanks again!
From our hearts to yours, may you have a wonderful holiday season and share it with loved ones. This is the backbone of BCDT that enables us to always continue our work. Thank you.