Through the eyes of a Project Trust Volunteer.

" Upon my arrival at the Home I met some very intresting little characters indeed. With no Xhosa and limited teaching skills I first relied on one mischievous 10 year old to translate to the rest of the class what I would like them to do. He had arrived the year previous with unpredictable behaviour having endured a childhood full of abuse from his foster carers, having first been left abandoned as a baby, but was learning to control his anger and behaviour. On more than one occasion I would begin writing the days lesson on the board, and then ask him to tell the rest of the class to copy down their task. I would turn my back to the board... only to then discover my group getting up and walking out of the classroom! When i got over my initial shock, and my star translator had stopped giggling I discovered he had told everyone I had said put their books away and go outside for break time."



" I will say that you haven't seen true African singing and dancing until you have spent an afternoon with the Thembelihle children. They know how to move! Their powerful voices would give me goosebumps. One of the most charismatic little girls at the home, complete with a true African bottom made for dancing, would often dance away her bad moods! Her story is heartbreaking, her mother died when she was small so she went into fostercare. Whilst there she was raped, sadly due to a lack of education there is still a lot of stigma associated to rape and her foster mother took her back to the social workers. During my time at the home we found out that she is HIV positive. I found this difficult to comprehend, this little girl had already been through so much pain and sadly has more pain ahead of her as the virus takes hold."



" I believe the children have such bright futures, they are like little sponges who soak up new knowledge and information. A perfect example of this is one little five year old boy we had... possibly the dirtiest, grubbiest little boy i have ever met! Always getting into trouble for beating up his fellow pre-schoolers... hiding up the tree and shouting at the neighbours... getting stuck inside the bird table! When we did manage to calm him down he was so eager to learn, and quickly learnt how to write and spell his name. I had to be careful not to turn my back on him for long though, otherwise he would have a rubber up his nose or have stuck a pencil in one of the other children's ears!"