Bridge of Hope
Care and support to hundreds of children
Katutura - Ms Eugenia Gcilishe - boh.welfare@gmail.com
Ms Eugenia is a retired teacher and from her active days, she noticed and observed that learners were often unable to manage the school day due to limited nourishment. Some would even faint in classes and many did not return to school.
Bridge of Hope (BOH) was initially created in October 2010 to provide a sandwich to students. As the years went by, the BOH developed into a fully functional soup kitchen where hundreds of students come to eat a meal after school. Ms Eugenia is a senior citizen with so much passion and care for her community. She develops and strengthens the community by involving the unemployed relatives of the children in small workshops and hosting regular informative meetings. She is constantly involved in investigating employment creating projects like creating sleeping bags from durable plastic and layers of newspapers or shopping bags from shading material off-cuts. All income goes towards the community and the feeding program for the children. The impact the centre has on the community is significant.
Ms Eugenia provides not only a meal, but also a safe place for the children to study if needed.
Thanks to our sponsors, the Gondwana Care Trust is able to assist BOH through the MealForTwo project. BOH receives goods twice a month, such as chicken, meat, dry goods and vegetables to sustain a healthy diet for more than 140 children daily. The delivery of educational material and cleaning products are on an ad hoc basis as they become available.
Thank you to Kaleidoscope for your constant support during the year. We are able to assist so many organisations with hygienic products and the TLC that all children need.
Natasha Pre-Primary School in Katutura
Meme Meriam has been teaching the children of her area to prepare them as best as possible for the primary school. This is done to keep the young children off the streets and to give them a good start before starting grade 1. Meriam also provides the children with a meal so that they can get all the energy they need to develop a strong body and mind.
The early stages are the most important in a child's life and Meme Meriam has been a key element in many children's lives for the past few years. The Natasha Pre-Primary School has been in dire need of repair and maintenance, and thanks to good samaritans such as Brad and Jill Reynolds, as well as the Gondwana Care Trust were able to assist Meriam with the renovations.
The Natasha School has been a beneficiary of the Back-to-School Christmas Bag Project and is also part of the MealForTwo Program. The school looks after an average of 30 children on a yearly basis.
PAY Centre
Physically Active Youth Namibia
Thuba 081 741 5658
New Project Alert
PAY Centre is located at the Multipurpose Youth Complex in Katutura.
The Physically Active Youth Program (PAY), a registered non-governmental organisation, is a community based after-school project that focuses on the healthy development of young people in low income communities in the Centre of Windhoek. The program provides a safe and constructive platform for a supervised after-school environment for youth, helping to improve academic outcomes, decrease juvenile crimes and teenage sexual activity, as well as substance abuse.
PAY Sports Program includes:
Soccer (teams in the under 13, 15 and 17 age categories)
Cycling (Cycling for all – parents and learners • BMX • Elite cycling) with road and mountain bike, which aims to produce nationally competitive cyclists in Namibia.
PAY also has a Chess Program. Chess is a mental sport with an immense value in trying to raise critical thinkers and develop the learners’ ability to think outside the box, in life and in their approach to the circumstances they face. Lastly, PAY includes swimming as a life skill sport. Every student that enters PAY has to be able to swim, which is a non-competitive sport.
The PAY Feeding Program provides 120 students with a warm meal, two sandwiches and a fruit item at the end of the day. For most of our learners this is the first meal of the day.
In order to add some vegetables to the meals, PAY also has a self-sufficient garden to provides some greens and other veggies in season. The students forming the environment club look after the maintenance of the garden, but for the past years the garden has been in dire need of care and donations!
To provide new soil and proper nutrition to the ground, such as compost, we are looking into a budget of over N$22 000,00. The quote includes seeds, some tools and some much needed ground soil and compost.
If you are able to assist with this project, or if you would like to see the quote, please contact caretrust@gcnam.com or donate using the reference PAY Garden:
Thank you for your assistance in helping us to revive the garden and also to enable us to help the students to look after the garden in the most efficient way possible. This includes the training sessions to maintain the garden. The renovation of the garden will also allow a safe and quiet place for the learners to sit and and reflect in peace. PAY Centre wants to create a natural space where learners can enjoy a little quite time. Katutura doesn’t offer many green spaces and it is important for our youth to understand and be able to appreciate the wonder of natural healing. To sit in a garden is not a given to all and we often forget how beneficial the natural environment can be on our mental health. Together we can create a natural little corner where one can pause and breathe for a moment.
Thank you for your contributions!
Auob Soup Kitchen – Stampriet
Gondwana Care Trust continues with the support towards the Stampriet community in the most rural part of Namibia. The Auob Soup Kitchen provides a warm meal for the most disadvantaged in the community, such as the elderly people and the children.
If you would like to contribute or donate toward more meals, please click the heart: