Youth Programme

A creative youth programme was run by Kestrel Raik, Volunteer at Village Power. Recycled materials were used to create several items, such as mobiles, which the children could take home. Keeping the children and Youth of this settlement busy over holidays is a priority. A photographic workshop is planned for the December holidays.

Christmas support for the Children of Masakhane

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! Quite unbelieveable the amount of gifts and support the Masakhane creche recieved from the Pretoria embasies. Special thanks to Isabel Pimentel who arranged a benefit christmas gift lunch at her house for the benefit of the creche, and then drove all the gifts out to us, and adding her personal contribution.
Thanks so much Isabel, your personal support and effort has not gone unnoticed!


We had a wonderful party on the 16th of December, with every little one recieving a gift and the whole community getting icecream which was given to us by Connie from La Veneziana next door.
Thanks a lot Connie and Miguel young and old have new appreciation for the sweet stuff!


Still on the topic of schools, We'd also like to thank Clem Angus from Freedom Stationers who supplied us with boxes of stationary, we where able to give each schoolgoing child a whole kit.
Thanks so much Clem! So many of our kids can't afford to even buy pencils - your sponsorship went a very long way.

The Creche is BLOOMING!

The Masakhane Creche has been running for 4 months now. The crèche is open between 10h00 and 12h00 every Monday to Friday. Four mothers from the community are working at the crèche. These trainee teachers receive informal teacher training from a qualified facilitator once a week. Every week one of them also gets to do some in-service training at a local creche.

Through the generous sponsorship from ABI the Masakhane Creche will be open for longer each day as from the beginning of November. This will serve the mothers of this community well in freeing them up to pursue income-geneerating activities. It has also been decided that the creche will be registered as a seperate entity to ensure sustainability of this imprtant project.


A food garden has been established at the creche where the children get the opportunity to tend the garden while learning about plants and nutrition.

The Creche at Masakhane!

The pre-school children with teacher Susan in the edutainer




Volunteer Su West shows teachers how to make play-dough
Children playing outside on the playground
Coordination is developed through interactive ball-play

Educational centre for children at Masakhane

The pre-school children of this community have never had the opportunity to spend time in a nurturing and stimulating environment which could prepare them for their school careers. The arrival of two edutainers courtesy of IBA and The Bright Kid Foundation has marked the beginning of a new era for the pre-school children of Masakhane. Two fully equiped classrooms are now available to be turned into the type of educational environment which these children need.


Even children of school going age will benefit from the educational area. Programmes to keep children busy in a contstructive way during school holidays could add a lot of value to the lives of the children of this community. Their attendance of adult training programmes such as the fire training which was presented in Masakhane recently is significant of the fact that children at Masakhane are keen to engage in productive and interesting learning activities.


Three young teenagers (14-15) showed great initiative when they attended and completed the fire training course which was presented on a Saturday and have recently received their certificates.

The enthusiasm of the young people to take part in the activities of their community was evident in the 'gum boot' and traditional dances which were performed at the recent certificate ceremony.

The Masakhane Children blog will inform interested parties about the wellbeing of the children at the Masakhane settlement.