Ear Doctor Visits Chintsa, South Africa

Otologist Salem, from Texas State in the US, spent several days visiting the Wild Coast Schools last week. He checked the ears of every child in each school (as well as our co-ordinators and some of the teachers!). The kids were fascinated by the technology that he brought along, if a little scared at first at the thought of it being stuck in their ears!

Salem visited Chintsa East, Bulugha and Silatsha Schools as well as Green Sleeves Home of Safety and the Chintsa East Health Outpost. Check out these awesome pictures caught during his work:

Salem at Chintsa Health Outpost

Computer Literacy Students Blog

Some of our computer literacy students have taken an interest in the Vlog and have written a short blog each to be a part of it. Although the internet connection is not currently working at the schools the girls have taken the time to type out their blogs and include a photo of themselves. Read the blogs of Sinesihle, Lusanda, Nolubabalo and Zizipho below:

My Blog

By Sinesihle Luqongo

What is my name? My name is sihle my sername is luqongo

Volunteers Build New Classroom in Rural School

The latest group of International Student Volunteers (ISV) volunteers joined VA32 in Chintsa from 24th June - 5th July and were the fourth group of volunteers taking part in several community development initiatives this winter season. This group saw the start of a major project based in local township school Silatsha which will be undertaken and completed over the next 12 months.

Silatsha school is situated around 50kms from Chintsa and receive support from VA32 volunteers as often as possible, through building and maintenance of the school facilities, sports initiatives and computer literacy classes when possible.

Silatsha currently has five small classrooms in which to teach 8 classes of children from Grade R - 7. In 2010-11 VA32 worked with ISV volunteers to build their fifth classroom and 2013 marks the start of a sixth classroom.

Volunteers Uplift Chintsa Preschool

Our third group of International Student Volunteers were with us from 8th - 21st June. Following on from the amazing work that the previous groups did at the African Angels School (you can read about their work in our previous blogs "Volunteers aim to make a huge impact on Chintsa" and "Volunteers Complete Classrooms at African Angels School"), group 3 set to working with Phumla at the Chintsa East Preschool. Phumla's preschool building and facilities were in need of some serious care and attention. Check out the work that this great group of volunteers completed:

Volunteering to Maintain Phumlas Preschool

The volunteers completed the following tasks:

- Cleaning, scraping and re-painting of the school building

Volunteers Work on Pioneering Sports Development Program in Chintsa, South Africa

This winter season VA32 is pioneering a Sports Development Program for local schools in the wider Chintsa area. Four groups of ISV volunteer groups will be hosted during the next three months and will facilitate this program along with VA32 project manager Denver. 

There is a huge need for programs like this in South Africa where there is no physical education (PE) included in the core curriculum. Extra curricular activities are provided by many private schools (or by sports clubs and training outside of school) and in many cases make up for this lack of sports development, but in the rural schools of the Eastern Cape there is a distinct lack of opportunities for rural learners to take part in these kinds of activities. This could be for many reasons; the families cannot afford to pay for the classes or buy the equipment, the kids cannot get to the clubs and classes as they have no transport and there are little to no clubs hosted locally for kids.

Volunteers Complete Classrooms at African Angels School

The past 4 weeks have seen two groups of ISV Impact Volunteers working with VA32 on a Community Development Initiative to help develop the facilities at the new African Angels Independent School - and this week the projects are almost complete!

(Read our previous blog Group Volunteers Aim to Make A Huge Impact on Chintsa to see the launching of the projects and what work was completed by our first group).

Community Development Project- Completion at African Angels School 

New Computer Lab - ready for computers to be installed

The new computer lab for the school has been set-up and is ready to be installed with computers (which will happen within the next month!).

The door was varnished and a new mural painted on the wall

See How Our Garden Grows!

The afternoons for volunteers are filled with community development initiatives in Chintsa which are designed to support the schools and people who VA32 work with every day.

The last few weeks have seen a new gardening and beautification initiative begun; driven by volunteer co-ordinator Ash, Kate from Friends of Chintsa, local teacher and carer Phumla and (of course) our education project volunteers.

The Gardening Initiative

The gardening initiative has several aims and outcomes: