Sigagule
Chris and Michael Thomas, Allan Appel and John and Jenny Anderson visited the SAME After School Child Care Centre in Sigagule village Wednesday 22 July which was a hive of organized activity. A long queue of children were each given three soup packets, every nutritious packet providing nutrition for one meal a day. This was followed by the weekly handout to families of a wheelbarrow full of enough food to feed each particular family, based on the number of family members, for a month. Also included were clothing, blankets and sanitary pads, all based on each family’s requirements.
We were most impressed and delighted to witness the precision with which Shirley-Anne Berretta and her team of volunteers handled the whole process and realized how important their work is in these difficult times. Some families walk up to 10km, with their wheelbarrows, to the Centre in order to collect their food and then walk another 10km home!
August 2020
Two weeks later Sue Harwood and John Anderson, accompanied by ORGR management personnel Nick Leuenberger and Lourenza Parkin, again visited the Centre. On this occasion we delivered a large consignment of clothes, blankets and toys. This consignment was a wonderful donation to the centre, for distribution to needy families, from Sue’s Bags of Love organization in Johannesburg and was gratefully received by the Centre.
Just prior to the weekly food distribution commenced we were taken to visit, and deliver food and clothing to, a destitute family. We were all profoundly moved by the plight of these poor people and it gave us an eye-opening insight into the work that Shirley-Anne’s team are doing on the ground.
Once again the weekly Wednesday food and clothes distribution was impressive and we were all heartened that our benefactors money is being well spent.
Maseke
On 21 August 2020 Joe Pearson, the warden of Olifants North Game Reserve, was invited by Sinah Magomane, the manager of the Maseke Drop-in-Centre, to view the distribution of food parcels, funded by the Balule Outreach Trust, and clothing, blankets and toys kindly donated by Sue Harwood and friends.
Joe was also introduced to the Chairlady of the Centre, Ryphie Mashale. Joe confirms that, as for Sigagule Village in Acornhoek, all of the recipients have been previously identified and the food parcels are made up according to each family’s basic requirements. This is confirmation again that our donors’ contributions are being well monitored and managed, exactly as we expect all our recipient organisations to operate.