October 2023

Someone mentioned the other day that the shops are already displaying their Christmas items!!!! How this year has flown by and we have posted 3 Blogs trying to keep our partners, friends and sponsors up to date on what is happening at Project Gateway.  We have had a busy but productive year and we are beginning to see the results of many months of hard work bearing fruit.

CARE Ministries:

Our Crèche programme continues to flourish and our Social Worker spends many hours monitoring the crèches in various communities around the city.  During 2025 we are planning on hosting another Crèche Carer Upgrade Training Programme.  We work in partnership with Singakwenza a local NGO who teach carers how to utilise recycled items to make toys for teaching gross and fine motor skills as well as numeracy skills.  We find this not only saves the crèches funds, but helps with the general environmental clean-up at the same time.  Also the carer’s are empowered to understand that their role goes beyond keeping children safe while parents are at work, but should also be a centre of stimulation and growth, preparing these children for entry into the Pre-school phase.  These crèches total over 700 children from various communities.

In Partnership with ABELUSI our “Community feeding Communities” garden project is also growing well

The direct impact that the 10 gardens have had on the local communities are vast and we are not able to accurately access the indirect impact but we have listed both impacts below.  It is generally accepted in the NGO Sector that the indirect impact can be as high as 10 times more in the township and rural areas of South Africa.  Applying this rule it would mean that our direct impact is a minimum of 1294 households which is at least 12,940 people receiving fresh vegetables on a regular basis.  Many of these beneficiaries are orphan children and some run “child-headed” households.  (Child-headed Household is where the oldest person living in the house is under the age of 18 years).  Since the start of our involvement with these gardens, we have partnered with other stakeholders in this industry.  One of our Partners has just donated organic fertilizer which needs to be diluted and then used, as well as seed potatoes.   He also kindly gave a demonstration to the local gardens as to how to prepare the soil for the planting of the seed potatoes.  This is a more sustainable way of assisting people with food security.

Gateway Christian School:

Our Gateway Christian School children numbers remain around the 390 mark.  We have been very active since our last “blog” with academics and sporting activities.  We had excellent results in our June 2023 examinations which prepares the children for the end of year examinations.  We have also had many sports outings.  Our boys and girls have played football against many local schools and we have participated in school tournaments for football and netball.  We recently held our sports day which was a great success as well.  This takes place over 2 days as we hold the Junior phase separately from the Intermediate Senior phase.  The children have also participated in fundraising activities such as a Market Day and a Pyjama Day.  All funds raised go towards helping the school with designated projects.

Gateway School of Fashion;
Our learners and facilitators have again excelled themselves.  They attended the Durban July Fashion Show which is South Africa’s most prestigious Fashion Show and horse race.  Our results were amazing.  Six of the designs were “tagged” in the Top 10 designs and our Facilitators Brenda and Pamela won the “Best Dressed Couple” for the second year running.  Congratulations to you all and very well done for your amazing creativity and interpretation of the theme.  All learners are currently busy designing their end of year ranges which will be displayed at our end of year Fashion Show.  The Year 1 learners produce a range of 4 outfits each and the Year 2 and Year 3 learners produce a range of 5 garments each.  We look forward to showcasing the results of this year’s hard work to many family members and friends some of whom sacrifice so much to allow their family members to attend our Fashion School.  Most learners are generating income which helps with family expenses.

MUSEUM:

The museum continues to host tours and educate school children on some aspects on the history of the Old Prison.  Tourists also find it fascinating that we have managed to preserve the history and at the same time have changed the Old Prison from a place of darkness into a place of “light”.  We have attended various interaction discussions with other Museums in our area and are planning with them how to boost the interest in the Heritage sector available to people in the city and surrounds.  Our schools programme is well supported and they often bring busloads of children for an outing to the various Museums.

We hosted the Viterbo University Team (USA) during May this year and this was a wonderful experience for each member of the Team.  They spent time helping the children in Gateway Christian School and they also visited a crèche about 30 kilometers out from the city center.  They enjoyed seeing a township area and then the more rural area where the crèche is situated.  One comment I heard was “Gosh I don’t think I will ever complain again about the resources I have, when I see how happy these children are and yet they seem to have so little material items in their tiny classroom and school.  They also walk so far to get here every morning and they walk back each afternoon”.

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