Swaziland Blog

A location has been found to accommodate some of the children unable to find a safe place to stay. Fana, 7, could not stay at his foster home because the foster mother was keeping him home from school so he could work for her. She also locked him out some nights if she was unhappy with him. Manoba was driven away from his Aunt's home because the Uncle would beat him and her when Manoba was around. So she kicked him out. We are still looking for funding to hire a full time caretaker and to cover other expenses of renting the 4 bedroom house. This will be a good ongoing project for some individual or organization to take on. Dámaris, of Guatemala City in Guatemala, Central America, will supervise the house. Dámaris (pictured) has been a volunteer with the Moyeni Project for several months.

Tanya, Serena and Micha from the Vancouver area just spent a week at the mission. They stayed with some of the other volunteers and spent time helping in the classrooms. They also went on home visits, did recreation with the kids and helped in minor first-aid situations.

We have been keeping an eye out for properties that we can use as a "safe house", since it may be cheaper and faster to buy then build one from scratch. So we found this very large 8+ bedroom complex in Siteki. It is well situated at the very edge of town, on the bus routes, 5 minutes walk to the markets, plenty of room to expand, motivated sellers, and has a beautiful view of the valley. The bad news is that it has sat empty for years and needs extensive interior remodeling. Remodeling may take 2 months and cost some $20,000. Asking price is US $85,000. But we think it would be a great bargain at US $55,000.
As a safe house we would install a resident manager and allow endangered children and difficult to place children there temporarily. There is a critical need for this as many vulnerable kids have no suitable alternative. Some families take in unrelated children to use them as unpaid laborers.
We are seeking donors, sponsors to get this project started as soon as possible. Please help.

In April a group of volunteers from the South Africa Vredelist Dutch Reformed Church spent a week helping in many ways. They trained our teachers in teaching and disciplinary techniques. They also organized some sports events, conducted a dance exercise class, and generally enjoyed fraternizing with the children. They donated a PC with educational software installed, and gave a brand new color TV plus a new DVD player. We welcome more educational software donations for PC or Macintosh, and childrens DVD movies. We have also recently entertained volunteer guests from Orlando, Florida, USA.

This boy seems to have a broken spirit. He never laughs, just stares emotionlessly, or looks down. He does not want to take your hand if you offer it and doesn't respond to hugs. After discovering that he had many genital warts, we scheduled him for an operation to remove them at Good Shepherd Hospital last week. He was very unhappy about the pain afterwards and stood by his bed for hours crying. Friday, we took some ice cream and chocolate to him and all the kids in the pediatric ward. His "granny", whom he stays with earns about $8.00 a day as a cleaner at the hospital. She looks after 10 or 12 children in her home.