Day 2 Shongweni Primary

Day two at Songweni school - the whole team have grafted solidly today to get as much done on the three classrooms as humanly possible - compare this photo to the one yesterday - and we've done 3 of these rooms in two days, the third is nearly ready for the last coat of red, but there's plenty more to do. Doors need repairing and glossing, Budgie is doing a stirling job single handedly sorting out the partitioning walls up in the eaves, blackboards need painting, windows and frames need desperate attention, and we're hoping that we can leave the children with a bright and colourful mural to remember us by, so our last days work tomorrow will need a massive final push if we're to go out on a high. We've been treated to a few more examples of local cuisine today, Carl pulled over to the side of the road on the way to the village and grabbed us a stick of sugar cane, which the local kids munch on all day long like they're chewing on marshmellow - honestly, I nearly lost what teeth I have left just trying to get through it. Tasty though. For lunch we had a local Indian speciality, 'Bunny Chow' (Durban and the surrounding areas has the highest Indian/Asian population in the whole of the country), which is basically a hot curry served inside a hollowed out half-loaf of bread. Which was a challenge in the scorching hot mid-winter weather, halfway through a good days work, still most of us managed some of it, and Anthony managed his usual two (!)

The team are dog-tired, but determined to get the job done, and make sure we go out on a high, having achieved what we set out to do, and even more - we've all learned so much, and we've all stuck together and achieved much more than we'd hoped. We might not get a chance to enter another blog tomorrow - the plan is to finish the job on the school, and celebrate Nat's birthday at a local Shongweni community centre, so we'll be unlikely to find any wifi spots! Hopefully we'll get chance to drop you all a quick line before we fly. Thanks to all who've been following us, it's been good to receive your comments each night. One more final push tomorrow. Job's a good 'un.

Shongweni Primary School

We headed to the Shongweni primary school today to complete stage 2 of our epic adventure. Shaun (Budgie) has been to Shongweni before and with fellow NCHA staff members completed several houses very near to the school. Shongweni village is central to the wider area of Shongweni, which itself is named after the enormous table top mountain(not to be confused with the table top mountain in Cape Town) which dominates the breathtaking landscape (confusingly, the mountain is also called Shongweni).
We arrived on site and were met by Gavin, our host affiliate rep, and the school principle. The principle thanked us for our time and explained that the school had 1098 students with 28 staff members, and the majority of his 'learners' were from single parent families or are orphans, as the estimated rate of HIV/AIDS is 70% in the local area.
Our initial job was to clear the desks and chairs from the classrooms - all the chairs seem almost dollhouse like, and almost all were broken. We then discovered these classrooms were for Grade 1 and 2 - 7 year old to 9 year olds.
Only when the furniture was out did we realise the room was covered in dust - nothing like we have seen before - inches and inches of thick dust and cobwebs that took the entire team wearing face masks literally hours to shift with brooms, mops and sponges (I'm convinced I'll be coughing up bits of Shongweni school for the next 6 months).
The furniture, blackboards and bookshelfs are all makeshift items - no interactive whiteboards and laser pens in this school - (whilst moving a box a blackboard rubber fell out - last time I saw one of them it was being hurled at my forehead)
The dust was never fully removed - in Britain it would have taken a team of specialists - costing hundreds and hundreds of pounds without doubt. We did however remove enough dust to reveal - white and green walls - first painted in 1940 and never touched again until today.
We scraped the walls to remove the flakes of old paint - delicate enough as you felt the walls may crumble.
Eventually we managed to add a lick of paint to the walls - a white base paint throughout - just this one lick of paint transformmed the classrooms making them brighter and considerably cleaner - almost immeadiately you could concentrate more on the job in hand - which made you realise this task will brighten up the room and allow the children to concentrate on their lessons and provide them with a place that they will actually enjoy being in.
Given that this is day 1 of 3 on this particular task - every effort from here on in will add to this, hopefully by the end of day 4 we shall have additional pictures and murals on the walls - actually of course we will - have you seen this team...!
We have completed the base paint in rooms 1 and 2 and have made a start on the clean up operation of room three. Tomorrow we shall paint the walls terracotta and cream - we shall also gloss the window frames which will make such a wonderful difference.
Adjacent to the three classroooms we'd been working on throughout the day, stands a small stone church overlooking the valley, and the team were treated to a impromptu choir practice by some of the local community, and we took the opportunity to take in the scenery whilst listening to the beautiful music.
The enthusiasm of the whole team was on a par with that of the very first day of last week's build, the two days off had definatley recharged the batteries, and we all it felt good to get back into our work clothes and get stuck in on another project. The whole team sends their love and best wishes to all at home. More tomorrow.

Umthombo

We arrived at Umthombo (Durban) following our journey down from St Lucia.

Umthombo is a charity based solely on donations to provide a safe and secure place for young street people aged 7 to 20. The services that they provide vary from given a child a roof over the head for the night to family mediation. The way they do this is similar to our organisation via support staff and external agencies but staff are there 24/7.

Our host SiyaBonga is residential at the base 7 days a week working 1pm - 9am - but as he is residential will also be available to assist children coming to the door in the early hours needing accommodation and sometimes medical assistance.

During the 2010 world cup, many street children were put into state cars by order of authority and forcefully removed from the area - sometimes up to 3 hours away in remote and unknown places - this was simply to ensure tourists did not witness or observe what was perceived to be an ugly stain on the face of the 'New Durban'. Some children were beaten and forced to walk back from where they were abandoned to the safe haven at Umthombo having walked in excess of 100 miles. Children were returning with extreme injuries to their feet and required urgent medical attention. SiyaBonga was imprisoned himself for attempting to defend and support the children.

Outreach workers receive no state funds at all, they go out into the community and often seek out the children - state social workers are only involved if the re-integration with the children's family fails. this means that SiyaBonga is renowned throughout the city as being a sole source of safety and protection.

A member of staff will sleep in the room ( Room being 14 X 3 high bunk beds squeezed into a small concrete dormitory - looked almost like an old garage - just one surfing poster hanged throughout this grey shell of a room.

Glue sniffing is dominant throughout the street children community - not for the suspected high that may well have been the case in early 80's western world - but simply to relive the feeling of hunger and despair of daily life in the streets. Umthombo offers support and a lifeline to those experiencing an addiction to glue and other substances that are readily available.

A vast majority of the children will have suffered abuse - including rape - staff members sleep in the large dorms in order to protect the children from further abuse from other children. The support that is offered is developing skills and interests including music, football and surfing - Art and Music is clearly and integral part of the support - this is clearly observed throughout the project. Rehabilitation is crucial to the success of developing a new life with purpose and meaning. One young man we met is now training to be a scuba diving instructor

Today has clearly moved all of the team - one of our group has already considered emptying their suitcase and donating all their clothing.

This picture clearly shows the sleeping arrangements - the same amount of beds are mirrored across the room and also a staff members sleeps in this room.

The smell of urine is overpowering - this however is not through bed wetting as we think - but through fear......

We have a funny feeling if any of the service users on this trip are present in the office when another service users complains about HWCS accommodation - eyebrows may be raised.

On to the next destination

Saturday morning already - we are just finishing breakfast and shall be heading north for our next destination. We have arranged to meet with Umthombo but are not fully sure what to expect - needless to say it will be another rollercoaster of emotions.
Unsure what internet access we shall have over the next couple of days.

this picture was takeing directly after the ceramony. during the ceramony princess broke into a dance pictures can not discribe the dance but we have recorded it on the camcorder and for those wishing to witness this beautiful moment you will have to buy the dvd that we shall be selling to raise money for our return (hint hint). as a presant and homewarming gift we framed three pictures and a signed t-shirt. i cant describe the emotions that everyone felt but we lost as many tears as we did sweat through the week

not the wrist bands princess is wearing

We did it!!

After years of planning, it took just 5 days (albeit blood, sweat and tears) to complete this wonderful home for Princess.
Every member of the team pull out all the stops to ensure completion today - this even included donning the waterproofs and working through torential thunders storms.
Dagga Dan Harrison continued to mix Dagga right to the end, Monkey Anthony swinging from the scaffolding (safely of course) El Roofio Emma could been seen all morning adding the final touches to the roof (of course) Juicer Tash and Mama Bear Alex mixed the bagwash with such dedication it stuck perfectly to the walls, Panda Josh rubbed each and every brick down ensuring the smoothest of surfaces ready for the bagwash, 'Betty' has not stopped moving scaffolding, tiles and blocks, Brickie has moved more blocks from one end of the site that he could have built a house on the side! - Duke Ashley has been the pied piper - everywhere you looked children would follow her to safety away from the site, Pointer Nat has done exactly that - pointed every brick on the building with utmost care and attention. Bagger West - has mastered bagwash - to the point where Amon has offered him full time employment - sorry Corp Oaks - you could be losing a member of staff. Shaun - no nickname for some reason - but has been great at making tea (when you can find him)..Seriously, without Shaun - we would only be halfway im sure - his abilities are truly amazing and his ability to work from the first second to the last in every square inch of the site has been an assest. Sorry - just remembered Shauns nickname - Budgie Smugglers - Sure the design department will ask.
To all the build for betterlives steering group, to all the fundraisers, to all those that donated....We did it.
9 Service Users from Young Persons Projects will be returning as 9 truly amazing people with a foundation for nothing but success.

BREAKING NEWS - SAM SACKED

Well - I have been sacked by the group - as you will see, they have already found a more mature and qualified replacement.

End of day 4

The end of day 4 looked something like this. Amazing. Everyone currently having breakfast ready for the last push of the build week.

Day 3 - Build Site & Danganya Kwa Gumbi Primary school.

Everyone settled in brilliantly again this morning, deciding on what jobs they were going to do without too much instruction, and cracking on in high spirits. The overall feeling is that we'd all love to see Princess's house finished before Friday - obviously, this may or may not happen, but given the progress we've made so far (the builders are nearly ready to start putting up roof trusses, and Aamon and Pearl are very pleased with the rate of progress in the first few days) there's no reason at all why we shouldn't get the job completely finished. Sam had arranged with Aamon to place the 'Thought Tin' in one of the blocks in an internal wall of the house, and we invited Princess to join the whole crew and to place the tin inside herself. Aamon explained the principle and the thought behind this gesture, and no one could fail to see she was really moved. I think quite a few of us got a bit choked at this point (I noticed quite a few sunglasses getting put back on - can't imagine why).

The Build for Better Lives team leaders had spoken with Carl our host affiliate earlier in the week, with the view to arrange a visit to a local school in the Danganya area, and today we broke off work for a while to visit the children just up the road from Princess's house at Kwa Gumbi Primary school. We turned up mob handed, and were met with huge smiles from the Principal and the local kids. They'd obviously been told well in advance that we were planning to visit, as the entire school came out into the school yard, and treated us to traditional Zulu songs and dance, as well as children's rhymes in English, and we were all amazed to realise that all the kids had obviously rehearsed in preparation for our visit. Pearl explained the lyrics to one particular uplifting song - the children were singing 'thank you' to us for being there, which was incredibly touching. Three of our crew, Josh, Dan and Emma had prepared speeches for the kids, saying how we were privileged to be here in such a beautiful country, the purpose of our project, and how we are so grateful for being so warmly welcomed into their community, which Aamon had translated to rapturous applause. Today also happened to be Pearl's birthday, and everyone, kids, teachers and BfBL crew sang happy birthday to her, to her obvious embarrassment, although I get the feeling she was secretly quite pleased.

The rest of the day was spend back at the build site, mixing dagga, pointing up brickwork, moving blocks, applying bag wash, and preparing for the last few days and final push towards fully completing the build and handing the house over to Princess and her family.

For those of you aware of the 'Thought Tin' - have a look at the picture and guess which block we placed it in!

We are working on a south african building site - needless to say - health and safety differs to that of the british standards - however 12 people who have limited site work - the accidents so far
1. Trapped fingers in the minibus door on the way to the site
2. The team leader ( nothing to do with NCHA) hurt her finger and was taken to the local medical unit.
3. Alex hit me in the head with a laminated health and safety poster (while in the bus).....

Day 3 - lunch time status

This was the development at around lunchtime today - before our visit to the 200 schoold children....let someone else explain that!

build status - day 2

This is how the build site looked during day 2 - the development of the site today is truly amazing - too many amazing things today - will leave this for someone else - please read all the blogs as it will be a busy evening

Princess

Princess Ngoneni Ziney was seven years old when both her father and brother Bhekokwakhe got shot by warriors and died. We moved away from that village to another and that is where she physically got shot. "we were ambushed on our way from school by a very big mob of heavily armed people. all i can remeber is that they were silent and the next thing i remember is that i woke up in Scotsburgh hospital in the ICU and I was toled it was after 12 days coma.
I am now on a wheelchair although i can walked with the aid of a walking stick.
We tried to get the RDP house but it never worked for us and nobody knows why. My sister died of HIV and AIDS, leaving behind 2 young children. one of these children died from a mother - child transmission while the other; Hlengiwe in grade 8 at Sdelile High School is under our care.
We tried to get RDP houses but in vain. We also tried to get grant for this child but instead we pay more money on transport and end up not getting it due to reasons not known to anybody.
Will you guys please build us a house? this one takes rain water in. Please help us have a home.

Day One 0800 - The team ready to get on the mini bus and start the build!!

Everyone very excited......

This is what the site looked like when we arrived. As you can see there was the foundations done, and the two first rows of bricks laid which i think were done yesterday.

When we arrived we were given a safety briefing by Sam and the H4H host and were given our first jobs to do.....