Child Protection South Africa Project #28106

Empower South African Women Fighting Child Poverty

by CHOSA Inc

Project Report | Jun 29, 2023
CHOSA is building capacity and celebrating growth!

By Ellie Hunja | Fundraising Coordinator, USA

Breaking ground at Molo Mhlaba's new campus!

Greetings from the CHOSA team! We are proud and grateful to share these updates from Cape Town with you, our valued supporters.

Your steadfast commitment to our cause has made a tangible difference in the lives of hundreds of children, this year alone! Here's a bit of what we've achieved together in the past few months:

Our partner project, Molo Mhlaba School, celebrated Freedom Day by breaking ground on its second campus! The STEAM-focused Montessori school for girls is the first of its kind in the township of Khayelitsha, and we are overjoyed to support the team as they expand their vision to reach more future world-changers.

Also, thanks to your financial support, Thembisa Ratanga after-school program was able to complete construction on a new space to house their programming. It’s a much more secure and weather-proof space, as they were previously challenged by soil erosion. They have also been able to purchase tables and chairs for the new space, as well as djembe drums for their music classes, yoga mats for wellness and mindfulness programs, and pens, pencils, and paper for academic enrichment.

Finally, CHOSA has continued hosting quarterly networking events for each of our partner projects to come together to discuss a topic of interest, hear from experts, and share advice with one another. This year, CHOSA hosted events focused on mental health in the social development community. CHOSA partnered with SACAP, the South African College of Applied Psychology, to place volunteers at the projects for individual counselling sessions, group counselling sessions, community-building exercises and general operational help. This was a crucial gap to fill as majority of our partners have not heard about counselling before.

Earlier in the year, we had a training on autism that helped educate our partners on the characteristics that are often associated with autism, how to go about diagnosing autism through the right channels, and best practices for caring for an autistic child.

Your partnership with CHOSA makes a huge ripple effect of change, as you can see by these updates! Thank you for joining our efforts to provide local communities in Cape Town with the tools and opportunities they need to break free from the cycle of poverty and build a brighter tomorrow for every child.

Our recent autism training at Hlumelo Educare

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Jan 28, 2023
Helping students thrive as the new school year begins

By Dhane Herbst & Chaleen Arendse | Project Coordinators, South Africa

Molo Mhlaba students complete a building activity

Happy New Year! We hope you and yours have had a great start to 2023.

In South Africa, January marks the start of a new academic year. It's been a joy to spend the past few weeks helping our partners prepare to welcome students back after the holidays. Here's a closer look at two of the schools CHOSA supports with monthly grants and capacity-building services:

Molo Mhlaba School is a low-fee independent private school for girls from under-resourced communities. Over the years, CHOSA has helped Molo Mhlaba establish various connections and resources to provide girls with the very best education and opportunity to choose their own career path.

This year, we are proud to report that Molo Mhlaba has added three more classes of students in 2023! The school's iSTEAM (innovation, science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and math) curriculum empowers students to explore new academic opportunities and take control of their education. We can't wait to see all they accomplish this year!

Hlumelo Educare Centre is a community-based preschool and after-school program. The center has a unique mission of providing an inclusive environment for children with and without disabilities to access early childhood education.

Over the years, the school has been struggling with space and accessibility for the increasing number of children - a challenge, but a great one to have! After reaching out to multiple community entities with CHOSA's networking assistance, they were offered a site on which they could begin developing a structure to turn their dreams of expansion into a reality.

The new structure is spacious and accessible for all, and will open its doors next week! We're eager to watch more young lives change thanks to the accessible, inclusive education that the incredible teachers at Hlumelo provide.

The steady flow of monthly grant funding that CHOSA is able to provide - thanks to you! - has enabled these two schools, and all of our projects, to dream bigger, expand, and reach more students. Every dollar we raise goes toward giving more and more students this life-changing access to quality education within their own communities. We are grateful for your continued partnership!

Exploring the new grounds of Hlumelo Educare!

Features of Hlumelo's new building

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Sep 30, 2022
Celebrating the work of our FIVE new partner projects!

By Ellie Hunja | Fundraising Coordinator

Heritage Day celebrations at Inzamezethu Educare

It's been a busy and exciting time at CHOSA. With two new staff members and the support of our incredible donors, we've been able to expand our work to five new projects! We'd love to introduce you to each of them:

Inzamezethu Educare Centre is a preschool and soup kitchen that serves the children of Khayelitsha and their families each day. Inzamezethu was founded in 1998, starting small in the home of its founder. Now, it has become an integral part of the community and a beacon of hope for the children that it serves.

We began providing capacity-building support to Inzamezethu in July. In that short time, they’ve hosted a fundraiser selling donated goods in order to raise funds for needed renovations. They also recently celebrated Heritage Day by hosting a joyful event complete with traditional food and clothing to highlight the beauty of their cultural heritage. (See a great video of our projects' celebrations of the holiday here!)

Ithemba Lempumelelo works with children with disabilities and physical impairments to provide skills development through the arts - specifically, ceramics. Ithemba Lempumelelo means ‘our hope for the future’ and the project lives this meaning by investing in the future through the children of today. Founded in 2020, they have overcome many challenges to grow their organization. CHOSA is currently supporting them with capacity-building services as they prepare for a fundraising event where they will sell the ceramics made by the children.

Imfuneko is an afterschool program that provides academic enrichment and warm meals to local kids ages 6-13 years. CHOSA was recently able to provide Imfuneko with a once-off grant to purchase stationery and other essentials for the afterschool program.

Imfuneko hopes to expand from their current offices to a larger building (a converted shipping container) in order to accommodate the growing number of students. Their future plans also include starting a community garden, which will provide vegetables for their community feeding program.

Skye’s Wooden Spoon has quickly become a cornerstone in the community after being founded at the height of the COVID pandemic. It seeks to take a holistic approach to community development, as evidenced by its wide range of programming across three different neighborhoods:

a feeding program that serves 300 meals per week
an early childhood development center
a community garden
an afterschool homework support project
outreach programs
recreational activities
case management support for social services - for example, getting children registered for school after becoming disenrolled due to family challenges

Imbono Afterschool Program provides educational support and life skills to nearly 50 children in the township of Gugulethu. These children often come from homes where their caregivers' lack of financial resources, education, and/or time contributes to a high drop-out rate. To combat this, Imbono provides a space where children can receive homework help and discover their interests through reading and extracurricular activities.

As the number of children they serve continues to grow, CHOSA will continue to support Imbono's efforts to fundraise, recruit volunteers, and develop their community garden.

None of this would be possible without your support - thank you for continuing to partner with us!

Ceramics by the children of Ithemba Lempumelelo

Heritage Day celebrations at Sky's Wooden Spoon

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