We are glad to report that the eight weeks of Lockdown Learning is extended for another week and that Vuyo reports a really good response to the 20-page (sometimes more) reading booklets CBN distributed. Many thanks to our generous friends in Germany who funded this project.
Lockdown is not yet over – in fact, South Africa is entering a new and dangerous phase as numbers of infections increase. We have to be careful. We have to, most of all, be careful of our children. CBN will not resume workshops until it is deemed safe to do so – whenever that might be. Children will, sadly, not be meeting with Vuyo in the afternoons either.
The realities of the situation are:
• Our children live either in Stanford South, where overcrowding is a fact of life, or in De Kop informal settlement, where the situation is worse.
• We began by distributing 100 reading packs per week with reading and activities for each week-day of that week.
• We also provided these booklets as free downloads on our website for anyone in the world who wanted them. https://www.childrensbook.co.za/home-reading-ideas (Scroll down to the bottom to view each week.)
• Some of the older children worked with Vuyo on the booklets and she also had additional reading books to read aloud and for the children to read.
• This was in association with Stanford Rotary who have valiantly provided food to replace the non-operational school feeding schemes that provided children with at least one meal a day.
• It has now become inadvisable for Vuyo to continue to have the children in her home. We expect (but cannot be sure) that this situation will continue for at least another month – maybe two.
• CBN Funded a small retainer for Vuyo (R2 000 per month) while we were able to do so. All other work was either voluntary, or funded by CBN. Overseas funding was used exclusively for materials and photocopying.
• We would very much like to continue with this programme, but the realities are that the bank account is reaching rock-bottom. We will have to stop until more funding arrives – and we are making strenuous efforts to make this happen. We never give up!
With all good wishes from the CBN team – Lesley, Lisa, Wilien and Vuyo (Alphabetically!)
