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> VHUTSHILO MOUNTAIN SCHOOL (VMS) > VMS Projects
VMS Projects
Dresses for VMS children
Upon hearing of a nonprofit organization which sent dresses to poverty stricken girls in Africa, a local grandmother recruited her two granddaughters, Julia and Sabrina to help with a sewing project of their own.Together they created and donated 30 dresses to Vhutshilo Mountain School. The local press featured the family on their front page as an example of heartfelt holiday giving. Please consider taking the time to view the article.The story is truly inspirational!
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Elisa |  | | | Elisa's children in front of their new home |
Elisa, a volunteer in the Community Garden initiated and supported by the Vhutshilo Mountain School, and her young son both suffer from asthma. They were living in a windowless mud home with thatch roofing that had seen much better days. This living situation was aggravating their asthma and sending them to the hospital regularly. HFL donors provided Elisa with a new tin roof, windows and a door. Elisa made her own bricks and with help from family and friends, built a new home. Reports so far show Elisa and her son are healthier and enjoying their newly built one room home! |
Support for Thendo |  | | | Thendo at hospital in Johannesburg |
After receiving a call from Thendos school saying he was ill, Sue-Anne, the Founder of Vhutshilo Mountain School visited Thendo at home. She writes:
"He weighed 11.5 kgs (approx 25 pounds) and looked like an old man!! The local Doctor didn t understand the problem. Some of our children have a late reaction to ARV drugs and he couldn't stop vomiting. Arrangements were made to transfer Thendo to a hospital in Johannesburg. Elias Nengwenani (bless him) drove him and his gogo (grandmother) down. She has no money to cover the cost of her stay and they could be there for awhile, nor does she have transport back. I feel terrible as we should have checked on him more often. The more children the school gets, the less easy it is to personally oversee all the HIV positive children who have moved on to upper grades. Please see if HFL could help."
1 month later:
"Thank your for helping Thendo. The Doctors in Johannesburg changed his drug regime as he had built up a resistance to his old one. This cocktail is not good, but is the only alternative. He is moving to a hospice to get fattened up before they will let him return home. He broke my heart when I picked him up he was so weightless."
Several weeks later:
Thendo came home 2 days before Christmas after a long stay in Johannesburg. Unfortunately the new drug regime they had to put him on is not very good, but we will monitor him carefully and hope for the best.
Sue-Anne reached out to Hope for Limpopo to provide for Thendo and his gogo. Once again, because of your generous support, HFL was able to immediately respond and money was wired the same day.We will keep you updated on Thendos health as we receive information.
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Building a School Addition |  | | | Bricks for the new additions are made by the VMS Women's Support Group |
Recently we received a plea for assistance from our good friend, Sue-Ann Cook, Director of the Vhutshilo Mountain School. She writes, At the moment we are desperately trying to raise funds for 2 classrooms and a toilet block ...Funders in Geneva will help if we can (only) get initial funding for classrooms...
When we visited Vhutshilo Mountain School last summer, we were thrilled to see the new 2-room school that had been built with blocks made by the VMS support group women. It was a far cry from the original school which housed 8 students in the back of Suzi's mobile home. However, the need for quality education in the area continues to increase and her small school was bursting at the seams before it was even completed. The ever-growing VMS population of K-1 students is housed in the school's larger classroom while the smaller classroom holds the second and third graders. The hiring of a new teacher has allowed Suzi to separate 31 pre-schoolers and babies from the K-1 class, however, there was no classroom in which they could be housed. They were forced to use the dormitory of the newly built adjacent halfway house as their temporary classroom. Unfortunately, since this dorm room was built for VMS students who are battling with their strict ARV drug regime, the program had to be suspended for the present time.
Believing that education is the key to a successful future, HFL obviously felt that it was very important to assist Suzi in her pursuit of initial funding for these additional classrooms. Yet, a "desire to help" and "reality" aren't always well matched. We keep very little reserve in the HFL bank account convinced that your donations are better served helping the children rather than sitting in a bank. We are always pleasantly surprised, however, at how a generous donor always manages to send a contribution when we need it most and this was no exception.
This time, the Segal Family Foundation surprised us with a generous contribution enabling us to give Suzi the "initial funding" she needed in order to get matching monies from the Geneva funders. Mr. Barry Segal prospered in his business and became involved in what he called "the most important organization and experience in my life: The Segal Family Foundation. "The SFF philosophy coincides with HFL's philosophy in that "We believe that it is often not the amount of dollars, but the focus and effectiveness of the dollars invested that is most important."
Barry Segal founded Bradco Supply which is ranked as one of the nation's largest distributors of building materials. Once we received the breakdown of building costs, it made sense to earmark SFF's donation for the building of the new structure's roof since, ironically, Bradco began as a roofing distribution business.
To paraphrase the words of the Segal Family Foundation's mission: We continue to be grateful to all of you who ....help deserving people and improve the quality of their life....
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