May 2023 

We are now almost at the half way mark for 2023 and who would have believed that the year would go by so quickly.  Project Gateway continues to do well even though the economic situation in South Africa is much the same as the rest of the world.  We are subjected to many power outages and the cost of food prices is continuously increasing making it more and more difficult for many households to be able to afford basic food stuffs.

Less than a week ago we watched with much anticipation the “Coronation” of King Charles 111 in the UK.  To all our UK supporters we were fascinated by the pomp and ceremony and congratulate you all on this wonderful milestone not only in your own history but in the history of the world.  Thank you again to all in the UK who continue to support us.  Your on-going support makes a huge difference in our lives and we are able to do so much more with this support. Thank you.

CARE Ministries:

Our Crèche programme continues to be active and our Social Worker visits the 15 crèches under our care on a regular basis.  The number of children grows each time she visits them and they are all actively involved in vegetable gardening as well.  There are now over 700 children in these crèches who receive excellent basic gross motor, fine motor and numeracy skills which will enhance their school careers in the future. 

In Partnership with ABELUSI our “Community feeding Communities” garden project is also growing well and we have recently added 5 more gardens.  This means that people in 9 Wards have access to fresh vegetables.  We strongly believe that Communities helping themselves by doing all the labour in these gardens is the shape of the future for the food shortage in our country.  By monitoring and giving some very basic support by supplying compost and seedlings, we have seen these gardens grow from strength to strength. Recently after some excess rain that caused some flooding in certain areas, one of the gardens was able to donate 1000 cabbages to the local community affected by the floods.  We continue to look for funding so that we can assist even more communities with this self help programme.

Gateway Christian School:

Our Gateway Christian School children numbers have stabilised around the 390 mark.  Our marketing department keeps the Facebook page active and this has helped in advertising our school.  We continue with a rigorous sports programme and have spent many hours competing against other local schools in netball and football.  Our Reading club continues and we have wonderful dedicated ladies who come to school twice a week to listen to children reading. This has greatly enhanced the education levels of these children as they have a greater understanding on the English language.

Gateway School of Fashion:

Our 33 learners for this year are working very hard at making difficult designs.  The facilitators are doing an amazing job of teaching new skills to these learners.  Many of the second years are preparing to enter the Durban July Fashion Show which is South Africa’s most prestigious Horse Racing event and they host the top Fashion Show.  Last year seven of our learners were tagged in the top ten at the Fashion Show.  An amazing achievement which made us very proud.  The learners are also studying the Paradigm Shift Basic Business Course where they will be required to complete a basic Business Plan by the end of the year.

MUSEUM:

We are based in “The Old Prison” in Pietermaritzburg and have a world class state of the art Museum on site depicting the history of The Old Prison and the city in general from the early 1800’s through to freedom in 1994.  This year we have seen a steady increase in the number of “Tourists” visiting our site.  The information we have displayed regarding Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi in particular aligns with the curriculum set out for schools this year.  This has encouraged a number of schools to bring their children to the museum to gain additional information.  We are delighted that we have a “team” from a University just a few miles outside Chicago (USA) visiting us at the end of May.  This not only allows us to employ a few more casual staff, but it also gives us an opportunity to chat and discuss South Africa as a whole with young American students.  We get a speaker to address them on the current situation regarding HIV and AIDS in South Africa and we also share with them the Vision and Mission of Project Gateway as to why and how it all started.  We encourage other groups to visit us as we are able to entertain and house them at Project Gateway.

Please e-mail [email protected] for more information regarding Teams.