On Wednesday morning 02 November I meet with Claus and Christine from City Sightseeing Cape Town outside the aquarium at the V & A Waterfront. As the City Sightseeing buses pulled off to show visitors all the sights of Cape Town we took off in the opposite direction to visit the TCD Trust projects in various disadvantaged areas of Cape Town. City Sightseeing Cape Town is one of our longest standing Friends of the Trust who have continued generously to support the work the TCD Trust does throughout the years. It was a great pleasure and honour to meet Peter and Jill Newman from the UK, Peter is the founder of City Sightseeing franchise.

Our first stop was at Baphumelele in Khayalitcha where we visited abandoned babies who are cared for at the center.Claus was amazed to see how bright and beautiful the nursery is for these children, colourful paintings on the walls of Elephants and animals and each cot equipped with clean and warm blankets. We also visited one of the house mothers who look after a small home which accommodates eight children of different ages. A delicious and warm meal was being prepared in the kitchen by the house mother and a volunteer from Canada read a story to some of the children in their lounge area.A much more noisy greeting meet our visitors at the Educare across the road, screams of delight and laughter rang out from the children who were enjoying a mid-morning snack. The Educare cares for approximately 300 children; this includes children from Baphumelele orphanage as well as children who come from the local community. The TCD Trust continues to support Baphumelele with maintaining the Educare building which was completely renovated by the TCD Trust in 2005.

Rosie’s Soup Kitchen was our second stop on our visit. We received a warm greeting from Rosie who for the past 20 years has provided a bowl of porridge to 200 children on their way to school in the morning. Rosie told us that the children preferred a slice of bread and jam or peanut butter but she knows they need the porridge to keep them strong and healthy. She tells them they can have a slice of bread and jam but they must first eat their porridge. She is a real angel on this earth. Our City Sightseeing guests visited the fully equipped and fitted kitchen which was built for Rosie by the TCD Trust in 2006.

Our final stop was at the new and magnificent library on the grounds of Blomvlei Primary School in Hanover Park. The Headmistress, Dawn Petersen, welcomed our guests with great pride and showed them around the library. Dawn explained that there had been another gang shoot out in the area and an innocent woman bystander was shot and killed. The woman’s body was in full vision on a field across the road from the school, many of the children saw what had happened, and although it was nothing new to them, the level of violence and fighting in the classrooms had escalated dramatically with Dawn having to take two girls from the classroom to hospital. We explained to our visitors how our dream for the library was to give the children a place of safety, learning and inspiration and provide them with the necessary life skills to go beyond their immediate circumstances and find options in life away from drugs and gangs.

Once again we thank City Sightseeing Cape Town from the bottom of our hearts, without your support these projects could not be done or supported by the TCD Trust. You are helping us to bring real, meaningful and long term change to people’s lives, Thank you.

June 21st, a glowing sunny and warm day for an outing…

Come Wednesday June 22, and the rain and cold gusts that seem to have taken the woes of the world were our wake-up alarm for the dawn of a new day. Not a great day for an outing sure but an outing to some of our projects it was – and a fabulous experience for all!

The outing had been organised to enable our Friends of the TCD Trust to visit the projects they has so generously contributed to and meet the amazing people we work with in the disadvantaged areas of our community.

At 10:30, we were all present at Ashanti Lodge, geared up for the weather and keyed up on the idea of visiting our projects. Our first stop was Khayelitcha where we met Rosie Mashale, the fabulous woman behind the Baphumelele Educare Centre where they met and played with some children, followed by a visit to the Baphumelele Respite Centre.

After Baphumelele, we visited charming Rosie in her Soup kitchen in Macassar, where the lingering scent of superb and healthy food truly made us hungry. Always smiling and welcoming, Rosie however shared with us her distress at being unable to cater for as much children and TB patients as she would have liked due to lack of subsidies.

While we were in her kitchen, we even witnessed some people from the community coming and asking if she has any soup left, and her sadness at having to turn them down since the soup was all finished.

Our last stop was Blomvlei Primary School in Hanover Park and the new library the TCD Trust recently opened there. After a brief chat with Dawn Pettersen, school headmistress, our Friends of the Trust had a look at the library and chatted a little bit with pupils.

Too soon, it was time to return to Ashanti Lodge, to the great disappointment of our visitors who all agreed that it was an awesome experience, an incredible eye-opener.

“The kids were so sweet!”

“ I wanted to stay there the whole day!”

“It was a heart-warming experience and I would love to do it again!” were some of our Friends’ comments on the way back.

Indeed, it is truly a heart-warming experience to be with these people. Their sense of dedication and ability to make the most of the little resources they have is undeniably inspiring.

A very big thank you to everyone who was present that day despite the weather! Thank you for your support and it was a real pleasure to meet you all!

The boxes were taken out to Rosie’s Soup Kitchen where she is currently feeding
180 school children every morning on their way to school. While we were delivering the porridge to Rosie she told me that she is also providing a meal for many people suffering with TB, they stop at her kitchen on their way to the TB clinic as they have to have food in their stomach before their medication can be given to them.

Rosie is also providing a meal to many other people in the community who are poor and unemployed.They can get a good nutritionous meal from her at the cost of 60c
a meal.

The story Mariette was talking about was the Tourism Community Development Trust !
Mariette explained to listeners how the TCD Trust had put action behind their good intentions and teamed up unifying the efforts of players in the tourism industry to bring real and meaningful benefits back to the community at large.

Mariette discussed some of the increadible success stories already achieved through the Trust with the support of our “friends of the Trust”. She also mentioned Blomvlei project and the increadble news that we beging building in January 2010 with this ambitious and wonderous project.

“Creating a variety of secure, sheltered, meaningful and inspirational spaces.”

What is our call to action ?
1. SECURE SUFFICIENT FUNDS TO MAKE THE DREAM COME TRUE.
2. ENCOURAGE ALL MEMBERS OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY TO JOIN AS FRIENDS OF THE TRUST AND SUPPORT THE GOOD WORK WE DO.
3. GET THE COMMUNITY, PARENTS AND CHILDREN INVOLVED.
4. FINDING PARTNERS AND RESOURCES TO ESTABLISH AN EXTRA MURAL CURRICULUM.

I would like to introduce myself to the Friends of the Trust, some of you may already know me as I have been involved in the tourism industry for many years. I was born in Zimbabwe and grew up with a genuine love and passion for Africa which has never left me. I have, as a tour operator, travelled Southern Africa extensively. For the past four years I have worked on a part time basis with a social upliftment project in the townships in Cape Town which has given me great joy and a deep respect for these communities. The project also involved the tourism indusrty and I saw how the project changed many people’s lives from living in a shack to owning a home of their own.

I look forward to working together with the Trustees and the Friends of the Trust to continue the good work which has already been achieved by the TCD Trust and to see the reality of the dream for the new multi purpose centre at Blomvlei Primary School in Hanover Park.

I recently visited Blomvlei Primary School for the first time and met with the head mistress, Dawn Petersen. She proudly showed me around the school and the new sports flieds which were being laid, the first step towards the bigger picture of creating an enviroment for these children that they can be proud of and play in a safe area. We were there on a scorching hot day and the children were having their school assembly out in the school courtyard, Dawn said she could not wait for the day when they will have the centre open and the children won’t have to sit outside.

I hope to meet with many of you as soon as possible and look forward to working together.

Bronwen has been in the tourism industry for over 20 years and has, for the past four years, successfully coordinated projects involving the tourism industry and raising funds to build houses for shack dwellers living in the townships of the Western Cape.

With her passion for the upliftment of grassroute projects in South Africa and a vast knowldge and understanding of the tourism industry, Bronwen will continue to expand our Friends of the Trust and work with our various projects which the Trust supports.

The multi-purpose centre at Blomvlei Primary School in Hanover Park will be the focus of fund raising efforts and ensuring that the project continues to become a reality for this community.

We welcome Bronwen onboard and look forward to working together.

The trust would like to thank George La Hood from Australia who spent time and energy whilst visiting Cape Town to source, buy and install the fan. Your effort is much appreciated George – thank you!

Rosie is concerned about the cost implications of this fan – her electricity bill will definitely be higher. We have asked Rosie to monitor her bills and the trust will endeavour to see that she is not out of pocket. Any volunteers?

Richard recently told us that they had “successfully wired one thousand dollars to TCD Trust. We are happy to be able to make this donation at this time. Maybe you could use it for the renovation of Rosie’s kitchen, but we will trust your good use of it.”

The good news is that renovations at Rosie’s Soup Kitchen are already complete. The funds will be allocated to the trust’s newest project: a Respite Centre for HIV infected children.

I was very pleased to respond to Richard and Gaby with the following:

Rosie in the wendy house that is her soup kitchen.

The current soup kitchen as seen from outside.

Rosie and some of the local children outside her new Soup Kitchen!

We will post photos of the progress for Rosie’s Soup Kitchen in the near future.