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Ball Project partners with all kinds of organizations: coaches, teams, leagues, schools, orphanages, churches & more.
Here is a very encouraging update from one of our Prochorus partners in Kayamandi, South Africa:
Unakho is the day care centre for differently abled children in Kayamandi. The centre started in 2009 and since then has strived to create a safe place for children who don’t always have a place in other schools. Unakho is currently the only preschool for children with disabilities within Kayamandi and Stellenbosch. C, our Principal, has been there from the start and she is such an example of unconditional love to these precious children. She is very passionate about these children and has learned so much over the past years. She has been through extensive training and courses to work with children with special needs. Khanysiwha, the assistant has also been trained to work with children with special needs. Ongoing support and regular training are provided by the CSPID team from the Western Cape forum for intellectual disabilities. Senecio, an organization that specialise in working with children with disabilities also visits Unakho on a regular basis for extra support, encouragement and training. Unakho also forms part of the Stellenbosch Disability Network in Stellenbosch. It is a network within Stellenbosch that strives to advocate for people with disabilities. We aim to work closer with other organizations that also work with children with disabilities to create more opportunities for children and youth with disabilities.
This year has been a good year, but as always it has been a challenging year. Working with children with intellectual, physical and physiological disabilities can be very challenging and draining.
Through the years C has gained so much understanding and knowledge about children with disabilities that she has also started to teach and support the parents to help and assist their children in the best possible way. She strives to assist families with the journey with their children.
In 2018 Unakho hosted 12 children. Some of the disabilities include Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Down syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, ADHD as well as two blind children. We strive to provide the children with the best possible care, stimulation and teaching. Some children are not able to speak, so communication cards are used to communicate with them. Most of the children move on to Dorothea, a Primary School for differently abled children in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch after been at Unakho. Dorothea always testifies that the children from Unakho are well prepared for school. Three of the children from Unakho will graduate from Unakho and move on the Dorothea in 2019.
We have used the funds donated by the Ball project to these projects by buying educational toys, balls and other educational needs. Thank you very much for your support. We appreciate it a lot.
Ball Project is thankful for our partners serving their communities to help children play.
Here is an encouraging update from our South African partner Ambassadors Football:
We work towards fueling a movement of coaches as parental figures and mentors. We work to address lack of stable homes and proper parenting through football.
To do this we designed a holistic coaches development process, where we invest life in a handful of mentor coaches, who in turn invest their lives into a handful of coaches, who in turn… This start a movement of coaches mentoring coaches, who then mentor coaches. In this movement players have a stable parental figure (in the male or female coach) and are being mentored. This in turn impacts the family of the player. We focus on this holistic coaches development process over 2-4 years. Investing into the coach through the mentor making strategy in partnership with other organizations and churches working with and encouraging young people.
Thank you for this partnership that enables of to buy equipment for the training of the coaches, that they then use afterwards for their impacting the players.
Ball Project is thankful for our partners in South Africa & around the world working to strengthen families & communities by helping children play.
We are back home again in the USA & back at work. It was good to go & good to be back.
The trip to South Africa was very encouraging.
We were able to meet with the leaders of several partners & were encouraged to hear & see some of their projects.
It is always valuable to get time with old & new partners to share stories & get updates about what is happening & what is working & what isn’t.
Ball Project is honored to have so many great partners around the world working in their communities to mentor young people & help children play.
