Life-changing Education for South African Children

Dear Friend of YOUPSA,

Thank you very much for the part you played in supporting our work so far this year. With your kind help we have been able to bring the children a wide variety of creative and exciting educational opportunities.
In this newsletter we would like to share with you the highlights of the recent months. You will find photos about each highlight below this newsletter. Please enjoy!

Art is as essential as sunshine
YOUPSA gives children the opportunity to take weekly art lessons! The kids are so keen to develop their art skills, and are absolutely brimming with excitement about this great opportunity.
The children have been learning a variety of techniques from artist Bruwer Geldenhuys that include shading, colour mixing, collage, still life drawing, and mosaic. Enjoy these beautiful mosaics that they have created!

Geometry, maths, illusions, ruler skills and colour!
The schools in this area do not teach the children basic life skills such as how to use a ruler. YOUPSA has been addressing this issue by offering creative lessons on ruler skills.
In this particulars esssion the children learned how to draw an optical art cube. They experienced the excitement of an optical illusion coming alive. The process began with learning to measure lines with a ruler, connecting them and then erasing certain parts of the lines, and magically the cube appeared! Once the cube was created, every child had fun choosing their own colour scheme to make it an illusory 3D appearance.

The ancient art of weaving
After visiting the Prince Albert Weavery, the YOUPSA children were inspired to learn some weaving techniques themselves. We took paper plates to create a simple loom, on which the children weaved their own creative colourful pattern. Look what beauty the children produced!

Festival of dance
50 rural children took part in YOUPSA's recent 3-day festival of dance. YOUPSA invited Jazzart Dance Company from Cape Town to work with the children from its programmes. Jazzart dancers gave a performance and shared contemporary dance techniques as well as Amapiano (a South African township dance technique). It was a dream come true for these children to see a live professional dance performance, and to practice dance together every afternoon. We have made a video of the event for you to enjoy, see the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

Theatre and drama
YOUPSA invited Lunchbox Theatre from Plettenberg Bay to perform 'A Dog's Life' for 45 children. This is a very engaging show about domestic animal welfare and relationships between humans and animals. Everyday life experiences, various kinds of characters and scenes are part of the show. With songs, actions and a life-like puppet of a dog, Wafi, this educational show brought a lot of laughter, fun and learning to our children. The following day, Lunchbox Theatre actors gave drama workshops to the children. An unforgettable experience!

Yoga for children
At YOUPSA we like to expose the children to a wide variety of experiences. This time Michele Schubert from George gave a yoga lesson for the children. They so loved the challenge of moving their bodies into the yoga poses and the playful, gentle way in which Michele introduced the exercises and interacted with them.
She ended the session with a relaxation exercise, lying on the back with eyes closed and calming the mind through breathing techniques.

Wildlife and nature conservation
We took one group of YOUPSA children to visit Cango Wildlife Ranch just outside of Oudtshoorn. The children saw a wide variety of wild creatures for the first time - lions, cheetah, vultures, crocodiles, pygmy hippo, bat-eared fox, meerkat, snakes, lemurs, bats, parrots and much more. It was exhilarating for everyone to finally see the animals live and not just in a book or on TV. The guide told the children all the most interesting aspects of the different animals' behaviour and habits. This was an unforgettable experience for everyone.

With much love and appreciation from all of us at YOUPSA
And all our best wishes, much joy, peace and good health for the coming year.

Links:

• Video of YOUPSA 3-day festival of dance

Dear Friend of YOUPSA,

We hope you will enjoy this update about the opportunities that we expose the children to. Thank you for your interest and kind support.
Here is a very interesting quote from James Baldwin: "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." It resonates with our experience with the children. They mostly copy the behaviour that they see in others. It is difficult to make a lasting impact on a child by teaching them something with words alone. Children learn naturally and effortlessly from what they see and experience.
In the YOUPSA programmes we therefore emphasize giving the children a wide range of opportunities so they can be inspired by the examples that they see.
However, none of this would be possible without all of you! Thank you, and please enjoy reading this newsletter.

Mountain Adventure
The first time ever for these De Rust children to visit the Swartberg Pass! Winding roads, steep cliffs, high mountains, breathtaking vistas and pristine nature - it was a day of true adventure. The children found all of this absolutely exhilarating and could hardly believe they were there. The Swartberg Mountain Range is the longest in South Africa, and the tallest in our province.

Exploring New Forms of Art
Children in YOUPSA's programmes are very artistic and keen to learn more. We visited the Klein Karoo town of Prince Albert. In the Prince Albert Gallery, the children loved looking at all of the beautiful paintings, photographs and sculpture. We also visited Karoo Looms. The children saw how Mohair from Angora goat and sheep's wool is prepared and spun into yarn, then put onto a loom and woven into various attractive products, like colourful rugs.

Learning Maths with Friends
Every child naturally enjoys Maths - it is in their nature to wonder about the patterns and regularities they observe in the world. At YOUPSA we make this style of wondering, curiousity and thinking part of our programme. We offer playful, hands-on and social Maths learning experiences to children. Recently the children have been improving their Maths skills by using an abacus, and by playing a Maths dominoes game.

English and Reading with Wendy
YOUPSA volunteer Wendy Erasmus runs a weekly reading club with one group of our Afterschool Programme children. The children are improving their English skills with Wendy, since she barely speaks a word of Afrikaans. They love this opportunity to read interesting and beautiful books with Wendy. "Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you." - Louis L'Amour

Learning about Plastic Pollution
YOUPSA's children learned more about plastic pollution - where waste comes from, where it can end up, what harm it does to the environment, and what they can do to help. They absolutely loved using the Hero In My Hood 'Let's go to the seaside' activity booklet. What a beautifully illustrated story with so much to learn!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Inspired by "The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle, the children learned how to draw their own Very Hungry Caterpillar. Just look at the beautiful results! It is a perfect book for new English language learners. Children absolutely love the story and artistry.

The Power and Beauty of Dance
For YOUPSA children it was a dream come true to see a live professional dance performance, and to practice dance together every afternoon. 50 children took part in this 3-day festival of dance. YOUPSA invited Jazzart Dance Company from Cape Town to work with the children. The dancers shared contemporary dance techniques as well as Amapiano (a South African township dance technique).
The children received dance workshops, practiced in small groups and improved their coordination and team work. On the last afternoon the children showcased what they had learned to friends and supporters. This will surely leave a huge impact for their whole life.

We Need Your Support
Each child needs multiple champions in their life to develop their full potential. Would you like to be such a champion? Please consider making a donation towards YOUPSA's work. Thank you!

Links:

• Newspaper article: Life-changing education for De Rust children