Midyear 2022 Report

Midyear 2022 News Update

Hiring of a Manager for the Sanctuary

Ms Belinda Tsuses was hired to manage the Mother House and CSN projects. She and her two children have taken up residence in the Mother House. The presence of a manager is moving CSN forward in exciting new ways and Lazarus Musambani, a board member of CSN, visited the Sanctuary and guided the process of establishing the orphanage with a full staff and selection of children.

Opening of the Mother House and welcoming the first children

Moving into the MH was a bewildering and overwhelming time for the children due to the magnitude of the change they experienced. Each child was vulnerable and required time and space to heal; some felt overwhelmed by the sudden abundance of food. Each was supported in love and assessed by the house mothers and volunteers who they were very familiar with.

The 16 children living in the Mother House under CSN’s full-time care include 4 sets of siblings: 3 brothers aged 6, 9 and 12; a set of twins, aged 5 (boy and girl); a set of siblings aged 9 and 11 (boy and girl); a set of siblings aged 7 and 10 (boy and girl). The children living on-site without siblings are aged 15, 14, 12 (2), 11, and 8. One child is HIV positive who is seen by the Doctor and collects medicine every month.

The children arrived without any clothes and what clothes they had were torn. A successful clothing fundraiser was held in Swakopmund. Now each child has a collection of clothing to wear including school uniforms.

Visitors to the Sanctuary

In mid-March there was a surprise visit by multiple ministries of marginalised communities who came to view Drimiopsis as a whole but they also came to the children’s home. The visitors included representatives from the Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication & Social Welfare, World Food Program, World Health Organisation, National Planning Commission Of Namibia, Nutrition and Food Security Alliance of Namibia, Food Bank of Namibia Co-ordinator Omaheke Region and a Member from the Office of the President for marginalised communities.

They asked many questions about the operation of the Mother House and they conducted a thorough inspection visiting all the rooms, storage facilities, gardens, and grounds. Manager Belinda Tsuses reported, “they loved the place–they were very impressed by what they saw.” Spontaneously, the girls provided a dance and entertainment for the visitors. This surprise visit included key contacts from the offices which Belinda needs to liaise with. What a wonderful start for our new manager!

Hon Ignatius Kariseb, chairperson of the Omaheke Regional Council and Regional Councillor of the Kalahari Constituency, Omaheke Region, also visited our facility. He is the key person of the Government in providing electrical power to our premises.

Councillor met with Belinda –electricity is close to being installed. The electrical work has started in Drimiopsis of which CSN is also included but we were told the project is on halt due to material shortage. They are waiting for material from South African suppliers . The Councillor is interested in supporting the orchard; The sewage system for the CSN- Children’s Village still needs to be thought through.

Food Donations

Manager Belinda has established personal relationships with many vendors such as Spar, Ok Foods , Shoprite and Megasave. Most vendors said they are at this point donating to other local Soup Kitchens. We are grateful though that Omaheke Megasave donates ten to fourteen loaves of bread weekly and Twenty five up to Sixty Kilogram meat bones every second week to CSN.

In the beginning of April the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare donated 10 packs of 20x500g instant porridge. They had collected pictures and information and talked about the possibility of establishing an Early Childhood Centre to be build on the Sanctuary land (all being part of CSN Children’s Village).

A local store in Gobabis, Omaheke Megasave, donated a voucher of N$1000,-. We thank Megasave for the generous donation and their support. The following items were purchased:

We also receive support from people within the community. Every week we receive something: a bag of tomatoes, some wood, beet, carrots, 20kg Butter, Powdered Soup etc. The community itself is beginning to support the children and the work in looking after the very vulnerable children.

Food Programs

The Soup Kitchen volunteers continue to provide 3 meals each week to 57+ orphaned and vulnerable children in the community. CSNS continues to fund the Sandveld Kindergarten’s food program, providing 2 meals Monday through Friday to 55 children.

Since June for 4 months, the United Nations World Food Program began operating a daily food program for 200 young children aged 5 and younger. The program is an effort to fight malnutrition in vulnerable young children through the winter months. This program is financed by the World Food Program. CSN was approached to assist WFP and Manager Belinda is an integral part of coordinating all of this. We are very grateful the little ones are all catered for during the cold winter months.

Garden

We are in desperate need of donations for shade netting, fruit trees and watering pipes. For now we only have been harvesting from our vegetable garden, but wish to start a tree orchard.

Education

Chief Ita is very much the grandmother for all the children. She is teaching them much about the traditional way of life for the San people. Here she demonstrated how to build a hut the traditional way.

Donations from overseas

Through the organisation “Hilfe für Namibia” a container was shipped from Germany and arrived containing bedding, blankets, towels, children’s clothing, jackets and warm clothing; Helge’s car was loaded to the rim as she travelled to Drimiopsis since winter was approaching fast and everything arrived in perfect timing.

Birthday Celebrations

On July 24th we had a birthday party for eleven children all of whom had their birthday between January and July. A professional baker offered to bake cakes for the children at no charge as her way of giving back to the community. We supplied only the ingredients.

Playtime

CSN staff

In the coming weeks another workshop for the staff has been planned and is presented by a social worker.

How to support us

Funds raised in Namibia are typically in the way of donated goods or services. All the clothes the children are wearing are donated clothes and also bedding for the winter. A service we received was from the pharmacist of Plover Pharmacy in Swakopmund who provided a long list of information for the First Aid cabinet with dosages for different age groups; it is stored in the cabinet and provides information and guidelines to Belinda and the house mothers. Most of our furniture is donated.

Belinda is using a donated laptop (donated by Jeanne and Al Fike in Canada) but she works out of a Board member’s home since there is no electricity on our premises. Belinda uses her phone which she needs to charge in the village somewhere, to be able to deal with the different Ministries; once the electricity is established it will be easier on her and her staff.

There are many different ways you can support us by sharing your gifts and talents or monetary wise. Here follows a list of programs we need support in:

Food Programs

Sandveld Kindergarten (55 children) Sanctuary Soup Kitchen (65 children) Mother House (18 children)

Sanctuary Homes

Mother House (completed) 5 Family Homes (to accommodate 8 children and 1 house mother) – start to fundraise

Sanctuary Sustainable Gardens

Fruit tree orchards Shade netting for vegetable gardens Watering system

Playgrounds and Activities

Soccer Field, making of playground structures Activities on garbage collection, recycling, composting, etc San cultural dancing and story telling

Educational Programs and Training Activities

For manager, house mothers and volunteers For children San-cultural activities with Elders

Brick making project

Brick-making on sanctuary land for future buildings Making pavers to lay around homes and make pathways Selling bricks to community (as income source)

Visitor interaction

Interaction with volunteers at soup kitchen Visit of Sanctuary land and gardens, the San-house with Chief Ita Visit of Kindergarten

Sponsorships

Godparent program

Material sponsorships

Educational support

Medical Aid Fund