15 December’ 17
Good morning to all stakeholders, partners and friends!
We are pleased to inform you of the following:
1. After the winter break and electing our new prefects at school we could finally
send them to the Riverside Farm where they had a prefect-training weekend.
It included a lot of swimming and eating and of course training. The new
prefects of The Lighthouse Academy really bonded that weekend and they
were trained for their new duties as leaders of TLA.
2. Our prize giving was on the 28th of October 2017. Tzaneen Primary made
their school hall available to us and we are extremely grateful. The children
enjoyed the big stage and receiving their certificates from the stage, where
they could look their proud parents in the eyes from a higher platform.
Although prize giving’s are great, it does mean we had to say goodbye to
our Grade 7’s. They were a very good group and we miss seeing them, but
we are so proud that they have graduated and will achieve greatness.
3. During the October break Colleen and François from TESCO came to
produce a video about our Basadi Women’s Program. TESCO has
contributed so much towards Basadi and we are very grateful for their
involvement.
4. We held our AGM (Annual General Meeting) in October 2017 in the Blue tent
and it was a great success.
5. Peter Conlan from OM International came to visit us in October 2017 and it
was so fantastic to meet him and his wife and show them around the base.
We hope to see them again soon. We are blessed to have a partnership with
OM.
6. In November 2017 we organized a local partner tour as a way for us to
express how thankful we are for everything partners do for us. We took The
Lighthouse Academy choir with us and everywhere we stopped we sang to
our partners and friends. It was lovely to see everyone and to genuinely
express our deepest gratitude towards all of them. The kids enjoyed the
outing too.
7. Astrid and her husband Thijs from the Netherlands toured Southern Africa
and also stopped by Tshega just before the Christmas break. They came to
spend some time with the feeding scheme kids and catch up with Ellanie.
Tshega would like to use this opportunity to thank Astrid and Thijs for their
financial contribution towards a jungle gym and support towards vulnerable
children. It’s always comforting to see friends return to TCM. It just so
happened that they were here during our
Christmas Shoe Box party.
8. Tessa and her family and friends, from Lufafa Hatchery, annual gathers
together more than 80 shoeboxes filled with personalized gifts and toys to all
our Orphaned and Vulnerable Children. (OVC) This is then handed out to
them at our Christmas Party in the village. Words cannot express how much
this means to these children and we are so grateful to Tessa and her team for
making this happen year after year.
9. Sabine Uriot representing Mohau, Germany also came to visit TCM in
November 2017. Sabine did our Staff Appraisals for 2017 as she serves on
the Tshega board. It is always so wonderful to have her back at the base after
being away for a few months. She visited the pig project that Mohau started
and it’s going well for most of the families that received pigs.
10. Shekinah House was involved in an outreach for woman in the area. The
ladies from Shekinah made up sanitary parcels to hand out in the villages. It
unfortunately rained on the day and parcels could not be handed out as
planned. Tshega staff and volunteers will hand out the parcels end of January
2018. Thank you for this wonderful initiative.
11. Some of our primary school students visited Unicorn in the last week of
November 2017. The children had an opportunity to interact and have great
fun together. Thank you Unicorn for arranging these opportunities for our
children.
12. High School Merensky did their President Awards at our organization in the
last week of November 2017. The students worked hard and showed great
potential for future leadership. Thank you Merensky!
13. Lamb’s Haven, our kindergarten building, was unfortunately not completed by
the end of the year as anticipated. But we are planning a grand opening in
March 2018 where you all will be invited. It has been a long journey and the
excitement to start using the space for those little learners is tremendous. We
thank Mohau, Germary and Fly and Help for making all of this possible.
We have a new principal at the kindergarten, Reinette Kruger, and she is a
good example of a servant leader for the Kindergarten already.
14. On the last day of the term we celebrated our Christmas party and year-end
function at Maxims in Tzaneen. It was a great celebration and wonderful way
to end the year on such a high note.
15. Lastly, we would like to thank all our stakeholders, partners and friends for
your support during the year of 2017 and hope that 2018 will bring an
opportunity for us to transform our communities together.
Regards,
Ellanie van Rooyen