Transcape's Rural Development

Hello guys

2010-08-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

We had a good board meeting on the 13th of August. We discussed a lot of issues which are bothering part of our team. Workloads are immense for some team members, important things don't get done fast enough and Co-organisations giving us headaches but the team dealt with it well and after a 4 1/2 hour meeting we had a great gathering all together at Siyaduma restaurant for pancakes and a cold beer. Very rewarding!

TransCape is boiling!!!!

2010-08-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Every time I drive into the Ngqeleni district to do Microfinance I pass all my friends on the road or see them working on construction sides or their car in front of clinics. I wave and feel accelerated about the work force and the passion TransCape has got. Yes we are moving and in the right direction. Hey we are busy making this world a better place!!!! Thanks, Astrid

News after the last meeting

2010-07-12T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
last Friday we had our meeting at the coast and 11 people attended. Not only the board was present, also volunteers were keen to hear news and contribute to the projects. I was very glad to hear that some funds came into our account after having a long drought in May and June. Thank you for all the donations, guys! The projects are doing well and Hyman was able to send of a blasting report about the first 6 month of the new holistic HIV/Aids program. Well done ,team! The bad news is that our Donor Relation Officer, Dominique, is on her way out and we are looking for replacement urgently.
Cheers yours Astrid

Up-Date

2010-06-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful team we have got. The financial crisis has also arrived at TransCape and it is getting very hard to obtain funds for our Projects. The big Projects like the Education Center and the HIV program are consuming big chunks of money every month and the project mangers and fundraising team have to work literally day and night. I was expecting the meeting to be absolutely stress full because we are running so short but the team just holds it together, makes appropriate adjustments and we are certain to find a solution for any problem. This last week we see a bit of light on the end of the tunnel. Our Dutch friends are the saviours and also one of the German groups promised to help us in August. Plus I received an e-mail from a 72 year old man from Australia who wants to fund raise for us through a 1000km bike ride along the west coast of Australia. He has got a hip replacement, osteoarthritis and diabetes! I just think WOW! If you want to support him please contact me! Thanks, yours Astrid

New chairperson

2010-06-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

TransCape has got a new chairperson. I want to officially introduce myself. My name is Astrid Gifford and I'm a board member of TransCape since 2006. I have been working on TransCape's Microfinance Project and still manage this project as well.
It is a big honor for me to be the chair of this beautiful organization and I ll do my best to keep everyone up-dated on Blogger, on what is happening in TransCape. Soon our monthly meeting is coming up again. I m looking forward to hear all the progress we have been making since our workshop in April. Our fundraising team worked super hard on proposals and identifying potential donors for our Health and Education Projects. Our new HIV/Aids coordinator Grace, has settled in nicely and worked herself through the piles of information about our holistic HIV program. She is doing well with all that workload and the team and people love her to bits already.
Love to you all, yours astrid

2010-05-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Another, long over due update on whats going on at TransCape:
All going well this side, dynamic and busy but well.
My laptop was stolen, then I got a new one, rebuild it then that crashed after two weeks and I had to start all over. Was a good test for my backup efficiency which seems to have past with good colours.
In the mean time I resigned as chairperson because I want to go build my house. Astrid took over the job for now. She is very ampt but I warned her properly that it can become very busy. I have all the faith in her and she is definitely much better with people than me.
I will be available to assist her all the time. I am also still the treasurer, data collector and web master. Please always feel free to still contact me about anything.

Grace is now our new HIV coordinator. She seems to be capable and is very good with the team. She loves to be out in the field and to work with people.
Roger and Judith arrived from New Zealand with the VSA volunteer program and jumped in to help with our education program. They are stunning people and seeing that they are staying for two years could be of immense help to us. Roger took over the IT responsibilities at our Mdumbi office and is doing a great job. Judith is exploring what she can bring to the pre school.
Andries is another volunteer who arrived to help with fundraising, an area which was neglected for a while as we were all so busy implementing. He is stacked with work.

So, see what I mean with dynamic, or is it diverse? Many changes but the foundations are solid. Our local teams who are mainly responsible for implementations are growing stronger and stronger and the few permanent TransCape board members are standing strong and motivated.

In spite of my laptop problems, with the support of two Dutch volunteers, I was able to get our new web site launched. Have a look at www.transcape.org. Still lots to be done though.
I also had time to do some upgrades to our database especially for the HIV side of things. The database is extremely helpful in the capturing of all the HIV statistics.

A summary of these statistics:
Separate Events Visitors
Soccer events 12 10697
Community AwareDays 3 2200
School AD and Work Shops 11 1575
Total 26 14472

All events totals Visitors Avg/event
People attended events 14472 557
Male 7858 258
Female 6700 302

People tested at events Percentage People Positive Percentage
Total 1371 9.5 of visitors Total 116 8.5 of tested
Male 446 32.5309993 Male 41 35.344828
Female 925 67.4690007 Female 75 64.655172

Soccer Games Played 69
Teams Participating 55

Distribution
Male Condoms 9350
Fem Condoms 1443
HIV Pamphlets 1443
PMTCT Pamphlets 577
TB Pamphlets 448

Support Groups
Total members 372
Total groups 19
New members since Jan 39
New members directly from Awareness event since Jan 19

April Stats
Members attending meetings 320
Female 280
Male 53
Average meetings/group/m 2.8

Home Based Care groups
Total members 69
Total Groups 3
Total clients 875

March Stats
Members visiting homes 32 all female
Visits 456
HIV Positive clients 107
Clients on ARV’s 80
TB Clients 76
Clients on TB treatment 74
OVC clients 220
Child headed household clients 33
Bedridden clients 29
Frail and elderly clients 90
Disabled clients 69
Pregnant clients 35
Client deaths 12

About the HIV program:
We did a pre family survey in ward 22 and interviewed just more than 80 households, the head of the house and as far as possible one scholar per household. It will be interesting to see what difference we made as soon as we did the Post survey. We also started doing interviews with some of the people who tested positive at one of our events to compare their experience of living with HIV to people living with HIV outside of our area of activity.

Prevention program is doing better than expected all a long.
For some or other reason the number of people testing positive has dropped significantly. You will see in the stats that the percentage of people testing positive at our events has now dropped to just over 8%. We are trying to figure out why this is so much lower than what was expected. So far there are the following suggestions:
• The existing statistics we estimated our figures on are faulty
• Ward 22 which we focused on for this first six months has had lots of attention and most people know their status and are well educated
• People who are really worried about their status are to afraid to come for testing
• Faulty testing kits

The nurses will soon start using a new batch of testing kits. I can’t understand why at the first four events about 20 people tested positive per event and then it suddenly dropped to only 4 for all the following events.
We will also have the last four events in ward 22 in very deep rural area to see if that makes a difference.

Anyway, in spite of that, we are testing more people than expected with the highest amount at one event 166.
All the soccer group play offs are done and we having the semi final knock outs between the 12 winning teams of the group play offs, this weekend. Seems like we will have TV and news paper coverage for this event, building up to the finals in August. We have extra testing kits and gift packs ready expecting more numbers of attendants than at any previous events. We are also being interviewed for local radio.
We have two committed international teams flying down for the finals so far.

The community events are doing well, giving government a chance to jump on board and tick off a responsibility on their list, at our costs of course. He he he. We have representatives from Dept of Health, Social Development, SA Police Service, Agriculture and sometimes even other groups like child care organisations, religious orgs and municipality. At the one event we had a very motivated councillor who challenge by example everyone to test. It was when we tested 166 people.

School events and workshops also on schedule. The children participate immensely and find the sessions very informative.

Support Program is also actually doing better than expected seeing that 4 more groups were started than what we planed in ward 22. They know though that we won’t be able to build meeting huts for them.
All three meeting huts that we are building, are in progress with the first one almost completed.
The support groups seem to be growing in numbers, probably because of the attention they are receiving through this program. They approached us with the idea that they want to do more in their community. They suggested to do kind of concert events where community members would be invited to and could pay an entry fee. We are documenting these events and will include some footage with the semester report.
They have many ideas to generate income and we are looking into it as ways to get the groups sustainable. We have started Micro Financing the members of the first two groups. Their training are in progress as we speak.
We have also applied for funds for fences for all the newly build meeting huts including a 25 x 50m garden area. We have applied to a donor who installs water tanks to donate the installation of water tanks at all our HIV groups new buildings.

Home Based Caring Program is on schedule. All groups have their NPO status and their applications are in with Dept of Social development. Another 10 members of the Mdumbi group went for their SANTA training and completed successfully.
Philisa’s office is finished and we only still need to buy the furniture and equipment and have the hand over launch. See statistics of the HBC group activities in the attached document.

Treatment Program still continuing as before with out funding. He he he. There are now 579 male and 947 female on treatment of which 63 male and 44 female are children. About 250 adults have been down referred. The children are having their monthly meeting today where we do a program with them and feed them lots of healthy cooked food.

About the Education program
Yho, we need funds for our education center urgently. We've got maybe 2 months left to keep going. I worked out the other day that this program is giving free education to about 500 people yearly, including adults, scholars and pre schoolers.
The early childhood development side (pre schools) grew to five pre schools. The after school enrichment program and adult education is soon to include basic computer skills in word, excel, publisher and basic internet, e-mail and computer education.
The ABET program could maybe end sometime next year as most students in our area got out of it what they can. This would then very appropriately be replaced by the computer education.

Hospital Upgrade
We are soon to start with phase two of the TB ward upgrade and renovation at Canzibe Hospital.
Our Plan for phase two:

Week 1
28 June –2 July - Removal of windows and replacement, Installation of air bricks, Digging of foundations and building walls at rondavels TransCape
Week 2
5 July – 9 July - Removal of windows and replacement, Installation of air bricks, Laying slab and building walls at rondavels, Plastering inside rondavels TransCape
Week 3
12 July – 16 July - Repairing damaged plaster, Removal of door frames and replacement, Repairing of ceiling, Roof on rondavel extension, Plastering walls of extension. Week 4
19 July – 23 July - Painting of doors and frames, Completion of windows, plastering and painting , Completion of ceiling repairs, Rondavel new floors and repair doors and windows.

OK, that’s it for now. For more info visit our web site at www.transcape.org where you will find project specific blogs for updated information about each project.
Greetings and thanks for the interest. Please help spread the word of the difference any small group of people can make if they would only think in terms of community and not only themselves.
Hyman

End February 2010 report on our HIV program

2010-05-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Our new HIV project is going very well.

Some basic statistics until end of February:

Prevention:

Soccer Events: 5
Soccer Games Played: 33
Teams through to Semi Finals: 5
Community Events: 1
School Events: 1
School Workshops: 1

Tents for testing

Winning team

Statistics:

People attending events 5842
Male 2906
Female 2836
People tested at events
Total 459 Positve 78 Persentage 16.99

Support:

· We are supporting and training 13 Adult Support Groups, 1 Children Support Group and one Support Group Forum. We will start 7 more support groups in the following two years.

· We are supporting and training 3 Home Based Care groups. We will start 1 more HBC group before end 2011.

Treatment:

We have 1300 adults and 94 children on ARV treatment and down referred 184 people who are on treatment to Canzibe feeder clinics.

Construction:

The first new Home Based Care office for Philisa is halfway build and we started with the first support group rondavel for ward 22 this week.

We only received 2/3 of the funds we need for this project from the Danish Embassy in SA. We urgently need the following to continue with this project for 2010:

At least one more vehicle – R100 000,00 (10 000 euro) The Wild Coast Theatre bakkie just broke again last weekend, we have to get it fixed before Saturday else we can not do the next event.
Construction extras – R70 000,00 (7 000 euro) Fences, water tanks and theft proofing for HBC offices and support rondavels.
Operational extras – R50 000,00 (5 000 euro) Administration materials, air time, transport and labor extras like nurses fees for doing testing on week ends.

This project is working towards having the HIV/AIDS epidemic controlled in the Canzibe feeder area.

General Update

2009-11-18T05:54:00.000-08:00

Just a little update of where TransCape is at.

Health:

HIV/AIDS:
We send you a few proposals in the last few months as far as our HIV/AIDS program are concerned.
o Funding Proposal Home Based Care
o Nyandeni Prevention Team
o TransCape HIV/AIDS Program 2009-2011 (short)
o TransCape detailed proposal for HIV/AIDS Program

The first two was project specific and send out before the overall proposal because these projects are in a more critical state of funding need.
The third and fourth proposal both covers our holistic HIV/AIDS strategy for 2010-2011 and incorporates the projects proposed in the first two proposals. The short version is more meant for testing the interest of new donors.

Since Erin, our new HIV/AIDS coordinator and Nancy, our Home Based Care coordinator arrived, we have been working flat out at the new strategy and these proposals. We had meetings with all relevant government departments including Canzibe Hospital management and did participatory workshops with all stakeholders in the area, like the prevention team, the ARV unit staff, Papamani - the support group forum, support groups, Home Based Care groups and clinical staff. The outcomes of these meetings and workshops were incorporated into the new strategy.
It is built on everything we have been doing until now. It adds quality and consolidates what we have been doing but also shows how we can systematically expand the model to the whole Canzibe Hospital feeder area. It is the first time we are in a position to produce a holistic HIV/AIDS strategy. It incorporates all previous HIV/AIDS related projects like Wild Coast Theatre, Siyakhula, the support groups, Papamani and the ARV Unit.

We have grown a tree of which we believe the fruit will represent an HIV/AIDS controlled environment. Now, while this tree is still young, we need to nurture it and at the same time, systematically, start planting more of it through out the area.

Formulating the plan and from the plan the proposals, was also not an easy task. Between continuous power cuts, two laptops that decided they had enough and half of the team working at Canzibe and the other half at Mdumbi, it took me, Erin, Nancy, Caroline and Dominique almost three full weeks to get it done.

Even now if I visit Canzibe and I walk into the new volunteer accommodation, I have to wait to be seen by Erin or Nancy as they are continuously busy work shopping and meeting with all the relevant groups. At the moment we are selecting more members for the prevention team, working on two new performances, revaluating our prevention message, arranging VCT lay councillor trainings for the prevention team and Ward 22 Clinics and Siyakhula, work shopping the content of the community HIV/AIDS survey questionnaire and completing the two new HBC Groups, Philisa and Mdumbi, NPO applications.

So, everything is 100% on schedule with the new plan. We are even a few steps ahead of schedule. Just one little problem, we are quickly running out of HIV/AIDS funds. I would really like to ask your support at this time. Not only is it essential that we consolidate what we started, but there is still more than half of the Canzibe area that had hardly any attention. We are treating just over 1000 people at the moment but estimate at least 8000 more people in the area to be in need of treatment as we speak. This means that about 35 000 people in the Canzibe feeder area still don’t know that they are HIV positive.

Our new strategy is dynamic and can easily be adapted to different time lines, as long as we stick to the systematic line of areas and process of events. This means that we do not need the 5,7 million rand before we can continue, but that any little bit can contribute to the immediate next phases.

We can also break the proposal into smaller bits or separate the different aspect thereof if that would make fundraising easier for you. For instance, if you have contact with a donor that prefers to donate to constructing new buildings, we can easily adapt the proposal to only explain why we need 13 support group rondavels, 2 HBC offices, one new park home and 7 clinic rondavels to be built. Please let us know how we can assist you with any of this.

Other Health projects:

Hospital and Clinic Infrastructure:
o We have completed the renovation of the TB ward phase one. It is really impressive to see what a difference has already been made, especially the bathrooms.
o We are halfway with completion of dividing one of the doctor’s accommodation to create more accommodation for doctors.
o We hope to finish the ARV unit waiting area before the end of this year.
Next year we are planning the following:
o Upgrade the children play ground
o Renovate the nurses accommodation – proposal to be send shortly
o TB Ward phase two

Nokuphila and Children in Need programs are doing well

Education
Kathryn is taking a six month break. We recruited a new Education program coordinator called Dawn. We know Dawn already for 5 years. She has been living in rural Eastern Cape for almost 6 years and been involved with education in the area for the last three. She is extremely passionate about the area and education. Kath is in the prosess of handing over to her and at the same time involving Martelli and Dominique to help keep an eye.

I will ask Kath to send you an update on education before she leafs.

We have also done a lot of work in developing a consolidated approach to the whole of Mankosi education. Education has now five main strands: ECD (early childhood development) After School Enrichment, Youth development,, Adult Education and Scholarships. Please find attached the latest proposal (in case you haven’t received it) As for HIV/AIDS, please note that this overall proposal can be broken down into elements to help target specific donors. May I draw your attention to the fact that the Education Program will also need new funding within the next 6 months.

Microfinance
Going very well. Nancy, our new HBC coordinator, is helping Astrid out with the Mdumbi group which was started by Kerry. For 2010-2011 we plan to implement the microfinance program to all the Adult Support Groups in the new HIV/AIDS strategy focus area. We would need more start up funds for this.

Tourism
We are working hard at the Mdumbi and Lwandile Point projects. These are initiatives we already started in 2004 but takes a long time because of having to work through a lot of Government regulations. Dominique recently send the Lwandile proposal to you.
Both projects will function on the same basis, 50% shares to TransCape and 50% shares to the community which means 100% community benefits. This would also make it possible for some TransCape projects like education to become more sustainable, thus us being less dependant on funds from you.

Operational stuff

We were all so busy lately with project management and fundraising that things like our new web site and database had to wait. At last this week I had time for the database again. The database organises related information according to projects, funds, staff, community groups, geographical area and support. This way we could have all our info together and related. We are in the process of adding the data.
Bert Koning offered to help with the web site so I am very thankful for that. Soon you would be able to visit our website and have access to weekly updates in blogs of all TransCape projects, a TransCape events calendar and all our proposals and reports.
Arhan, a journalist volunteering for us, is busy working on ideas for a TransCape voice.
We are very grateful to all this help. We feel it very important that TransCape should be presented accurately and appropriately.

Other projects and activities would be covered in our new annual report which we hope to get done before end of January 2010.

Thank you very much for your continued support and please let me know if you need any further information.
Greetings and love,
Hyman
0027 (0)83 458 0423
hyman@transcape.org

Progress

2009-08-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

Yho, time flies when you are busy. It feels like I am continuously busy trying to get there but when I think about it, its as if I should be able to just choose and I will be there and have the fulness right now and here. I find that you actualy can do this, just become aware of your breathing and the surrounding sounds to start with.
Anyway, this is where we as TransCape are at:

HIV/AIDS

1. Treatment

· ARV Unit - A third park home has been installed and is fully in use. Dave, the project manager and building contractor of the TB ward renovation, agreed to coordinate the building of a roof and floor between the old and new park homes, extending the existing waiting area. He also agreed to install the electricity and water to the unit.

· The desktop that was used to keep ARV statistics in the unit broke down, so we replaced it.

· We are employing four people at the moment to help at the unit – two pill counters and two administrators assisting patients.

· The unit is currently putting about 15 new patients on treatment per week, compared to the 20 per month at about the same time two years ago. There are about 1 000 people on treatment by now.

· Down-referral- Thanks to the very thorough system Simone established, Caroline is very successfully down referring to the 9 Canzibe feeder-clinics. Previously, patients had to travel very far each month to receive their treatment at the ARV unit, but now they can just go to the closest clinic.

· The task of down-referral is immense. All the medication has to be pre-packed at the ARV unit at Canzibe and then be at the right clinic at the right time for the right patient. All this is happening in rural Africa!

· So far an average of 16 patients per clinic have received treatment through down-referral and Caroline is starting to reach 5 patients per month per clinic. She established that, in their current states, the clinics cannot handle more than 25 patients per day.

· When that number is reached, more clinic days will have to be sacrificed for ART or the clinic capacity needs to be broadened. We are considering both options at the moment and are in communication with Canzibe management, Clinic Authorities and District HIV management.

· Caroline continues to provide very important training to the nurses, which is necessary for the system to work.

· TransCape provides the transport, administration and stipends for support group members assisting her at the clinic.

· The treatment program costs TransCape about R7 000, 00 per month at the moment and Caroline’s work is voluntary.

2. Prevention

· The Wild Coast Theatre group is continuing with an average of 2 community awareness days, 2 soccer tournaments and 4 school awareness days per month (a total of 8 awareness days per month)

· The project employs 8 people

· An average awareness event consists mainly of information provision, a theatre performance, open discussion and peer to peer communication.

· 21, 116 people attended community awareness days and soccer tournament awareness events

· 28, 020 children attended school awareness days where issues like HIV sexual transmission, HIV prevention, living with HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, self esteem, human rights and alcohol and drugs were discussed.

· 1540 children attended school workshops concerning the same issues and 84 support group and other relevant community members were trained in doing HIV prevention campaigns in their communities.

· The PMTCT Program is also continuing with providing HIV-positive mothers with the alternative of formula and education personnel, in order to increase awareness of the importance to bring pregnant women into the system so that they and their children could be protected.

· An average of 30 women per month are cared for through the PMTCT Program

· Both these programs cost TransCape R 23,500.00 per month.

· We decided to fund Sokanye Prevention Team for 6 awareness events over two months. They reported about the first three which took place over June. I am waiting for the report for July.

3. Support

· We are supporting 11 HIV adult support groups (550 people) and one children’s support group (38 children). The adult groups meet once every week and the children’s group meets once every month when they receive their treatment. These meeting are used for support, training and for the children as a special event. Last week the children’s group went on a weekend to East London.

· Three adult support groups have established gardens and will soon start planting their food gardens.

· The Support Program costs TransCape about R 5, 000 per month.

4. Home Based Caring

· Siyakhula Home Based Care group continues to go strong. They directly support three other HIV support groups, 203 orphans, about 100 elderly and frail people. They are currently treating 12 critically ill patients in their homes, every day.

· At the same time they are providing community and school HIV awareness programs and assist anyone that needs to go to hospital or who wants to test for HIV. The big advantage with Home Based Caring in the community context, is that who ever needs help can receive it because everyone knows everyone and with carers spread throughout the community, help is always accessible.

· Lindelwa is still in East London after giving birth to her child. It’s going well with her and her family. The rest of the group is looking for accommodation for her when she returns in September.

· Siyakhula is still waiting for the renewal grant from government. Once the government cut down on 14 stipends, we were able to obtain funds to carry these costs in the interim.

· The two new groups, Mdumbi and Philisa Home Based Care groups both completed their training in Mthatha. Philisa opened their bank account and both are working on their business plans to apply for the SOCDEV grant. We still need to help them establish offices.

· Recently we were contacted by Mthatha Rotary who offered to provide wheel chairs for people in our communities. Within one day we were able to send Rotary a list of people needed wheelchairs in the three communities where the HBC groups are active.

· There are still 8 wards left in our area of operation and all are in need of a HBC group in each one.

· The Home Based Care program costs TransCape about R 5,200.00 per month.

5. HIV and Health Strategy

· We have been working on our new HIV/AIDS strategy and realized that setting up the networks and infrastructure to address the issue can be valuable for many other aspects of community development like other health issues, OVC’s, education and community capacity. We hope to soon send you a proposal capturing this holistic approach.

· By mid September we will have two new project managers, Erin and Nancy, who will focus on HIV/AIDS, This will be a welcome relief and support to those TransCape members who are busy on the ground with these projects.

6. Other Health related projects

· We have strengthened our relationship with the Canzibe Hospital Management and we now conduct meetings every three months. In addition to that we decided upon a monthly HIV/AIDS meeting in order to formulate our new strategy. The management is very grateful for support received from TransCape and donors.

· Nokuphila Nutritional Centre is still going strong. It is estimated that we would have treated more than 45 children by the end of this year.

· The doctors working at Canzibe are now able to send malnourished children to Nokuphila as well as make use of the Children in Need Project. This project provides financial assistance to any impoverished child that visits the hospital and has basic needs that are not being met.

· Both these programs cost us about R5, 500.00 per month.

· We have started with the renovation of the TB ward at Canzibe Hospital. The electricity system has been redone and upgraded to incorporate the installation of the ventilation system, which will happen next year. Basic reconstruction of certain rooms and reconstruction of the whole plumbing system is being done at the moment. This is a three year project.

· The hospital management also asked us to renovate the nurse’s homes and split the doctor’s accommodation so that more doctors can be accommodated. We will soon have proposals requesting financial support for this need.

· Philani Clinic roofs are completed and the walls are painted.

· The TransCape Volunteer Accommodation at Canzibe is going well. The ceiling has been completed and tiling and paint work is finished. Only the main floors still need covering and some final touches. like the light fittings need to be installed.

EDUCATION

1. Early Childhood Development

· Mdumbi Education Centre continues to thrive and develop and set the standard for high quality early childhood education and care.

· Three preschools in the area have been inspired by this example and have approached TransCape to partner with them

· TransCape and MEC are currently supporting these schools with teacher training and professional development for 12 teachers as well as nutritional porridge for 140 children age 3-6 years.

· We are also rotating resources like theme boxes, books, toys and other educational resources and a generous donation of stationery helped all the preschools with supplying educational tools like pencils, paper and scissors, which are all imperative for learning

· Our ECD mentor, from America, is here with us for the next two weeks to work with the 4 preschools and 12 teachers in our preschool cluster

2. After School Enrichment

· 150 children continue to attend classes in the afternoon at MEC. They watch educational TV, work in their literacy books and learn from educational software on the computers

· We are currently looking for a skilled project manager to help improve and develop this program to include a variety of after school activities, like sport, gardening etc

3. Youth Development

· TransCape was able to raise funds to purchase a beautiful temporary classroom structure for the local high school. The grade 10 learners were without a classroom for the first part of the year and so we were happy to be able to accommodate about 150 new learners

· We were also able to buy much needed furniture for the high school. We bought new desks and chairs in an effort to upgrade the classrooms and we have bought the timber to build shelves in each classroom

· Without a skilled project manager for this project, we have been unable to move into the second phase, which is to educate the principal and learners in how to use the equipment and furniture and how to treat these items with respect.

· We are looking for operational funding to ensure this project is a success

4. Adults

· We recently hosted a very successful ABET Prize giving for 43 learners who passed exams with very commendable results

· 96 learners are currently enrolled in our ABET program

· We are sure this number will increase as we offer business and computer courses to supplement learning

5. Scholarships

· We recently received much needed funding to continue to support two learners at boarding school in Umtata. Both are doing well and are in regular contact with us regarding their development and school work.

· We are so happy to announce that 5 other learners entering grade 10 next year will be financially supported at school in Umtata. They are well-deserving young learners and are bound to make the most of the opportunity

· A friend of TransCape in America, has taken on board the financial support of one of the preschool graduates of 2008. Musa’s mother died in December last year, leaving him without family and financial support. He is incredibly bright and well-deserving of a 12 year scholarship

6. Operational

· We are in need of operational funds in order to continue to carry out the projects set in motion. With funding, we will be able to afford project managers to guide and support each project

· The education program has a running cost of close to R30 000,00 per month.

SOCIAL

1. Micro Finance

· Here are some statistics of the previous businesses:

61 individuals received a Microfinance (MF) loan
5 loans were not repaid
389 dependants benefitted
there was a 254% increase in income as a result of MF
R118 115.00 was spent on loans
Additional admin costs of R20 694.00 were incurred
Going forward, we will be able to establish 4 groups per year with an average of 20 people per group.

· We started 20 new micro finance businesses so far this year. After a two day business skills workshop, the successful applicants each received R2, 000.00 to start their business.

· We are considering a new approach of rather starting products and service developments than businesses. The running costs for starting 80 developments per year is about R1700 per month.

2. Soccer

· The next Mdumbi Cup Soccer Tournament is taking place from the 6-7 August. We have our full HIV Prevention program happening on both days with an added program especially for the children. Same as last year, 12 teams are participating and we have the Surf Masters group down from Jeffreys Bay to assist. We expect about 2500-3500 spectators on each day.

· We are planning something big for next year. The idea is that some of our international donors could host tournaments in their country as fundraising ventures. These tournaments will happen in conjunction with our HIV Prevention Soccer Tournament program. The winners of these tournaments will play out at next years Mdumbi Cup Tournament. Please let me know if you are interested to participate.

· We still need about R 15, 000 for this year’s tournament.

NATURAL RESOURCES

1. Tourism

· Mdumbi Professional Massaging and Siyaduma Restaurant are both doing well.

· This year we are busy with upgrading the Village Based Accommodation facilities for the hiking trail between Port st Johns and Coffee Bay. Last week the VBA owners received in house training and a two day workshop on hygiene and hospitality. We purchased eight new hot water “donkey” systems and table chair combinations and hope to have it all installed before end next month.

· I was selected chairperson of the Nyandeni Local Tourism Organization for Nyandeni Municipality. This has opened some doors for the development of the two tourism ventures we have been working on for years now, Mdumbi Point and Lwandile. We hope to have proposals for this with you soon.

· Tata Spargs Volunteer Accommodation has become a whole volunteer program and we are working with ImmersionSA on this. This program promises a good income to many families in Mankosi area as well as some sustainable financial backing for TransCape.

OPERATIONAL

· We recently hosted a second TransCape capacity building workshop, where we developed a working vision and mission for our organization. We are open to suggestions, as this is not yet final.

· Vision - We are a connected community comprising of holistic, healthy and empowered individuals in an optimally developed and fairly managed sustainable environment.

· Mission – To be an optimally informed, monitored, open and accessible hub with relevant examples, tools and networks for making positive choices about how to live

· We made good progress with job titles and roles. This is also summarized in the attached organogram.

· Progress was also made with using Google docs and calendar. Soon we will send you information on how you can access documents like minutes of meetings or proposals online or how to see events happening on TransCape’s calendar.

· The database is loaded on our server and we are busy adding information.

· We hope to launch our new website by end September with links to blogs for all our projects.

· Next weekend we will have our next TransCape meeting and a training session for all members on how to use the Google, Database and Web tools.

· The month of July saw three of our international donors visiting. We had a great time with them, came up with great ideas and got good feed back on how we are doing.

Thats it for now, see later

Opperations

2009-04-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Opperation wise I am bussy trying to get the following into place as soon as possible:

Job descriptions/roles for Chairperson, the Board, The Non Executive board, Treasurer, Secretary, Human Resourses, Fundraing, Reporting, Project Management, IT and Area Mangers - Hope to be done end of next week.

Getting the web site sorted - Pascal is very cool and we are slowly getting everything in place. Kath and Martelli is busy sorting and loading static information. Me and Arjan are looking at the structure. Maybe by the end of next month we can publish it...or how do you say that?

I send an e-mail to everyone to start bloging like I am here, in Blogger, the bloging programm of Google. Then all project managers can start to regularly update their blogs - a starting point for information gathering and reporting. These blogs could be linked to our web site.

I have uploaded many of our docs and templates to Google Docs. Its possible to share these to anyone with a gmail account. A good place to keep backups and to have a central document that doesnt have to be e-mailed to everyone everytime a small change has been made. As soon as job descriptions were agreed on, it would become the responcibilty of the secretary to keep these updated

I am also trying to keep Google Calender up dated with all TransCape events. All of you can help me with that. You can easily add it to your

Arjan and I deviced a plan for me to be introduced and start take over communication to our donors that he was responcible for. If I could but do half as good a job as he did, with some grace from our donors side, we should be OK

Project wise I am busy with the following:

The Plan to make the Mankosi Community Sustainable Development Plan have to be finished by Friday. If so, It will be evaluated by the Univercity of the Freestate and I will receive credits...or not. But that is not what its about, just a bonus. Its also going to be a proposal for funds to do the whole Planning. I was hoping that Domenique will be intersted in helping with this.

The water heating "donkeys" should have arrived in Bloem today. We are picking them up beginning next month. Then the first phase for the VBA project can begin.

I have become very involved with our HIV projects here at Canzibe:

We have now a full on operating "Prevention Team". Thanks to Bert. They have a set programm but are also on standby to do awareness programms if so requested by anyone. This entails the Wild Coast Theatre group, School awarenes programms, Community awareness days, and soccer tournaments. They meet once a month, Caroline facilitates that. They have their next awareness day this weekend.

Philisa HBC group are opening their bank account on Thursday. Another 10 members of Mankosi HBC are currently receiving training in Mthatha

Kath and Tathiswa has arranged for the HBC's to receive ABET training. This has comenced on Monday.

Sokanye awareness group, more NorthWestern Ngqeleni area, are bussy trying to draw up a bussiness plan for their programm.

Lindelwa are worried about Siyakhula as Dept of Social Development wants to cut the amount of carers being financially suported as well as the rands amount being paid. At least they had some good income for a while. Its anyway impossible I think for the government to support all rural areas with those kind of stipends, just dont understand why they didnt see it coming...or how much money do you think is out there?

Some urgent matters:

We desperately need a HIV Coordinator. A conatct Kath picked up at Mdumbi, Anne, seems interested. She has more experience and qualifications in the development world than all of us put together. I e-mailed her again today to ask when and for how much. Alec of 2540 is consedering to maybe help with a sallary for her.

Alec is really suportive towards us and willing to help with anything they are able to.

Getting there

2009-04-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

Hey,
This is to become TransCape's chairpersons blog. Transcape is a Non Profit Organisation active in rural Eastern Cape, the old Trankei, Wild Coast, South Africa. The area we are active in falls with in OR Tambo municipal district, the most poverty stricken area in South Africa. Check out our web sight, http://www.transcape.org/.
A short powerful description of what we are faced with according to local municipality and what we as TransCape achieved since 2005:
Major stigma and no information surrounding HIV and AIDS; 30000+ people from different communities visited our HIV awareness campaigns since 2006; Poor health facilities; 700+ people on ARV’s through our ARV unit at Canzibe Hospital; Secluded regions in lack of government services; 230+ orphans being cared for; Over 20% of the local population is HIV positive; 10 HIV/AIDS support groups formed since 2006; No water and sanitation; 500+ bed ridden and critically ill people cared for through our HIV support groups doing Home Based Caring; No Jobs; 65+ Micro-financed businesses formed since 2006; Poor educational opportunities; 400+ students trained at our educational facilities, Very little money, transport and food; 110+ children were nutritionally brought back to health and their mothers trained in our Nokuphila Malnutrition program

I hope to use this blog mainly as a way to stimulate and inform issues surrounding development which have a unique perspective from where we are, living and working amongst, and with, very poor but not to unhappy people still living very much as their ancestors did but at the same time being challenged by the capitalist, knowledgeable and driven western civilisation. How should we approach sustainability in this context?