May 2010
The Crèche at Lebanon
In the pipeline for three years or more the creche is undoubtedly our biggest project to date.
We had many promises and let downs but finally the creche is up and running.
We have 4 full time staff including a Head Teacher. The project has agreed to pay the staff salaries for the first 18months. It will be a struggle but we hope we will receive sponsorship from within South Africa to help us. The children in the creche now number 28. We have 11 of them preparing to go to "Big School" and they are in the head teachers class. We also have more babies than we had expected so they need at least one member of staff full time
Without doubt ( and we may be a little prejudiced on this) they are the best kids you could hope to find anywhere. They have nothing and expect nothing so what ever they get is a sure bonus in their lives. Their Mums report that they wake up looking forward to going to the creche. The creche reports that the kids don't want to leave at night!
Our grateful thanks to all in the UK for donations large and small.
Also thanks to Cape Town Quakers for their generous donation and not least many thanks to our friends of the learning-journey group at Leiden University in Holland who gave us the donation we needed to start building the creche.
We are currently fund raising for the following:-
· We need to provide a sand pit, climbing frame and a perimeter security fence and to cover the running costs until local sponsorship and Government funding are available. We also require a lot more books which are very expensive in South Africa so we buy them 2nd hand and transport them over. We estimate costs for these as follows
Sand pit £150.00
Climbing frame £1000.00
Running costs for 18 months £18,000.00
Books £500.00
Security fence £1800.00
Total £21,450.00
