First, Baphumelele would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped to ensure that Baphumelele has managed to continue to deliver a service to those in our community who desperately need support and help, without your help and donations we would not have been able to continue to do this much needed work. The year 2020/2021 has been a difficult time for not only Baphumelele and South Africa but for everyone around the world. Who would have thought that a virus could cause such havoc in the world with many people losing loved ones and many people losing jobs. I do not think there has been one family spared some form of pain and heartache.
Although 2020/2021 has been a tough year, Baphumelele through Rosie’s persistence and perseverance finally received funding from the Department of Education and the Department of Social Development for Education for our Educare. It has been very difficult the last 3 years to receive our compliance certificates but at last we received them. We are required to comply with the building standards the Department of Education have set for our Educare and now although our building does not meet their health and safety standards, we were lucky enough that a very kind donor stepped forward to help us to repair and build the Educare and expand the building. We currently have builders who are busy with building the new Grade R and fixing the building to comply with the Departments standards. We hope that within the next 4 months.
We recently received the certificates of compliance from the Department of Health for our ambulance and it is now up and running and we have employed some paramedics. This service is a much-needed service at Baphumelele as quite often we get some very sick patients and children who suddenly need to be rushed to the hospital and we must wait hours for the ambulance service to arrive so often we are taking these patients to hospital by car which is not dignified as many of them can barely sit up let alone sit in a car for even a 5-minute journey. This way we can take them to hospital with dignity.
After many years and some terrible workmanship from previous builders we are finally completing the building of the upper part of the New Hospice which will increase the bed capacity for sick patients at Baphumelele quite signifi-cantly. The demand for spaces and care facilities for sick patients has increased particularly as several palliative care facilities have had to close their doors the last few years due to lack of funding. We are also wanting to have some consultancy rooms and rooms where the Hospice in the Home staff and Respite Care staff can hold one on one sessions with the patients and their families to help them through these difficult times by discussing the way forward with them and how to manage their illness.
We have had some challenges at the Fountain of Hope project and particularly with regards to the new building and we still do not have our occupancy certificate as the builders made a mistake on the stairs which were not as per the requirement of the building inspector, and this has now had to be remediated. Two of our new conservancy tanks at the Fountain of Hope burst as there was a lot of rain due to the water level and the installers had not accounted for the effect of flooding on the tanks, so we had to have the whole conservancy tanks and plumbing system to the tanks replaced and repaired to the standard required. This was an unnecessary expense that could have been avoided if the builders had followed their due diligence but unfortunately Baphumelele has had to bear the cost of their lack of attention to detail, however we hope that the builders will soon be repairing these problems and we can finally get the occupancy certificate and hopefully in the not too distant future Baphumelele Fountain of Hope will receive funding from the Department of Social Development which up to this date we have not been able to secure.
The Baphumelele children’s home continues to increase in numbers due to the lack of facilities as many youth and childcare facilities are closing their doors due to lack of funding so there are even more children without a place to stay and even more children who are homeless. We continuously have more children than our certificate is for as the Department of Social Development has nowhere to send these children. We cannot turn away a child, so we continue to take in children who need shelter. The children are now getting quite excited for Christmas, and we hope we can give them a little Christmas party this year and something to celebrate although funding is difficult, but we will try our best.
Our vision for next year is to continue to deliver a service to our community and to build Rosie a proper office as her office is too small and compact so we are hoping that we will be able to convert our old woodwork shop to an office for Rosie and a boardroom. We also hope that next year we will receive funding for our Fountain of Hope project. We want to try to get our sanitary pad project up and running and be able to give our young girls in our community some form of dignity and ensure that they are not missing any school due to not having the means of getting sanitary pads as this is still a huge plight in our community. We also want to expand our vegetable garden and hopefully have more traders coming to purchase our vegetables.
Clemens House, it is fully to its capacity, 15 children to date and 26 staff members and we are being blessed to have twins there too, it has been a 25 years of support from Mainz Family and friends, and Margarete they have touched all children’s lives from different projects and continue to bless us abundantly, we would not be where we are without their support, The Clemens Children’s Respite Centre aims to continue its service of intermediate care in the community of Khayelitsha and the surroundings and to provide care to all our children with HIV, TB and other chronic illnesses.
The Department of Health has called so many meetings with Baphumelele to show their gratitude towards this project and keep on promising funding the following year but what is funny is them placing children here, we will hang in there like the Educare where we never lost hope but after four good years we are being rewarded.
From Baphumelele team, we would like to wish you all the best, merry Christmas and a happy, successful, and healthy new year.
BAPHUMELELE WALDORF NPC Z 118 Dabula Street, Khayelitsha 7784, South Africa,
+27 (0)21 361 8631,
fax +27 (0)21 361 2695 www.baphumelele.org.za info@baphumelele.org.za
Section 21 Registration Number – 1995/007799/08 Department of Social Services and Poverty Alleviation - Reg. No. 1551122 C7531 Public Benefit Organization (PBO) Reference Number: 930019697 Non-profit (NPO) Reference Number: 051-418