By Barbara Borgman | Project Leader
What isn't challenging about life for vulnerable young people needing home, stability, and a future, especially as we all dig out from under a grueling, stressful COVID-year?
Our funding goal for the past 3 months has been to complete the Boys Dorm at Teen Independent Living home. The large, red roofed home all the teens of KCV have been calling home for several years now, is just too small for both boys and girls and the nuclear Mbongwa family in which to live. Though 6 or 7 of these orphan youth are usually away at tertiary ( not duirng COVID year however!), they come 'home ' during holiday.
So in October we decided to steer as much funding as possible towards completing the Boys dorm. It had bene 4 years since we first dreamed of this house and like many buildings in Africa, where capital is hard to come by, we started little by little. Now a handsome 3 bedroom, lounge, bathroom and study room sits proudly on the sandy , weedy ground.
No, the boys can't move in yet. Next week the cement floor is laid, and doors purchased...but the boys are aready dreaming of the beds they'll sleep in the spot to call theirs for the few years they have left with us.
Oh yes, we have a cut off point for living here, marked by having a job, completing a qualification, finding alternate living place. we're proud of the 11 young adults with meaningful work and independent lives, the 7 who are still in school acquiring skills and the 3 who are still coming up.
We find that rural orphaned and vulnerable young people need a longer time towards independence. They are combining Zulu traditional identities with confident social, language and broad world view to which they've been exposed by living with us.
We heartily thank all our donors for what it has taken to complete this dorm. We are adding on line motivation chunks for our distant kids, to keep us all going in the right direction. We are planning to extend this project on GlobalGiving. Please meet us at the Donation Button!
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