Purple Rain

Our best wishes go tho PUPRLE RAIN in the preparation to the Race on Saturday. May you win the Turfontien Mile for us.

Comments and followers please

Hi there to all our faithfull followers! Please register as a follower so our blog can reflect your interest. (It looks a bit bare with the currently just one follower registered.) Thanks Dave. Our current one and only!

Tell me what you want to know more about. Do you want me to take you through the therapy progress of one of our little ones and perhaps tell you every week how she/ he is doing? Do you want to know about our needs, donations, joys?

Let me know and I'll oblidge.

The PARTY

Yesterday the HR Team from Yum (the KFC guys) gave us a party to remember. The pre-school kids from Lambano Sancturay and the toddlers from TLC Ministries were the VIP's for the occasion. The completed two therapy rooms and store room were officially handed over to Thusanani here at the Children's Memorial Institute, Braamfontein. Johannesburg.

We had Chicky come and visit. We had KFC. We had cake. We had fun!

Sunday...and they are still here

Thanks to the HR team from Yum Restaurants International (franchisor for KFC)! What dedication. It is Sunday, but they keep on coming to finish what they've started.

It is seldom seen in today's world that people care so much. Here at Thusanani we notice and we honour you for your dedication,Cathy and Steve.

Saturday, slogging away

Even though we don't work on a Saturday it happens from time to time that a week does not have enough hours....and we work on the Saturday.

Today here at the Children's Memorial Institute where our offices are, you will find Yum (KFC) preparing for our party on Monday and staff working on a Lotto Proposal. Out in Centurion Henry is busy designing our business cards.

Thanks Steve and Cathy for all the painting and tidying up before the Big Party. we appreciate all you guys are doing! Thanks also to Henry who are using precious family time to help us.

WOW

I went to visit the Thusanani premises...OMG I was blown away! They have superb facilities with support from other NGO's in the same building. Even though their facilities are great, it's useless without people. They have some permanent staff, but desperately need more professions to help with the assessments and training. They are doing SUCH AN EXCELLENT job...WOW!!
Things I can see that are needed are more hands to help with moving stuff around and things like fixing up thir shed, more toys to be able to give away to children and children homes, Professional marketing support (current marketing is superb, but support from a professional marketing company would be of SUCH great benefit.
I was almost in tears when I heard some of the stories...and that includes the GOOD ones! wow! So many children's lives have been changed already...and the list of children needing help just gets longer and longer as more people find out about Thusanani...Dave Coates

Slogan

Dear Friends, Family and those who care, we need a slogan. Help us with your comments. Our current suggestions are:

Assisting underprivileged children in reaching their full potential

Our quest: To eradicate developmental delay in underprivileged children and uplift their future

Occupational Therapists with a passion for bettering the lives of the many children orphaned in South Africa

Providing Therapy and Training ....ensuring better outcomes

What do we do?

We Provide Therapy and Training....ensuring better outcomes for Children in Children's Homes and those affected by HIV/Aids.

Khotoso Mokoena

Lara and Michelle, our Trustees, went to the Charity Mile function today – it was great. We were allocated Khotoso Mokoena as our celebrity (only South African to win a gold at the Olympics – in long jump). Our horse is Purple Rain.

It must be a good sign...to have an Olympic Champion on our side! Lets hope Purple Rain can bring home the much needed funds...we want to ensure that the babies waiting to be adopted can be assessed....and for that we need MORE therapists ...which in turn means we need more money to pay these professionals.

A Day at the Races

The Turfontein Mile will be run on 1 November 2008. We'll have a horse running for our charity. Hold thumbs that our horse wins! Why not come and join us at the racetrack, we are ALL going to be there.

THE PARTY!!!!

It is scheduled for Monday 27 October....and it's gonna be finger lickin' good!

Did you Know?

Thusanani is involved with the assessment of babies as part of their medical screening before they are adopted. The occupational therapists assess the babies from 2 months onwards. This is to to determine if the baby has a developmental delay or possible problems with muscle tone. Many of the babies were born prematurely and it is necessary to ensure that we give comprehensive information to the adopting parents.

Those babies that present with a developmental delay, are followed up and given therapy as well as a home programme.

Website

Our new and updated website is almost ready to be "launched". Have you checked out the current one? Better be quick or you'll miss it. www.thusanani.org.za


We are calling for involvement from everyone who follows our blog. Please comment, ask questions and show support. It is a difficult time of the year....lots of baby assessments to complete and pressure to finish the trainings scheduled. We need to hear from those who care!

Wish List October 2008

Ongoing throughout the year
To employ more therapists to enable us to reach more homes, more children, have a greater impact.
To run training workshops for care givers at the children’s homes
To run workshops in the community to teach educators and care workers about development and play.

Once off with regards to Occupational therapy to the babies from an orphanage:
Therapy mats (exercise mats) x 4
Baby doughnuts (x2)
Baby changing station
Baby gym from plastic (x4)
Baby walking push cart to assist in training for walking ( x3)
Large wall mounted mirror

Once off with regards to training of care givers at a children’s Home and training to care workers and educators in the community:

Laminating machine with accessories
Shredder
Colour printer
Binding machine for binding manuals
Urn, small
Trolley (catering type)

Once off with regards to the staff working at Thusanani:
Fridge (small bar type)
Office desk chairs (x3)
Bookcase (x2)

There's a party being organized!

It is still a BIG secret, but there's a party scheduled for 27 October 2008. Ten lucky todllers/ babies and ten lucky pre-schoolers from an Orphanage will be the VIP's. Watch this space for more detail.

Getting ready for 2009

I've been to The Glen Shopping Centre to discuss the coming year. They will once again sponsor the salary of one therapist and an outing a month for a group of kids from a children's home. This is great news and ensures that we can continue to give therapy to children in the Children's Homes and to do training with their staff. The outings to The Glen Shoping Centre with a group is also a highlight to look forward to.

Burglarproofing

Still on the subject of our new treatment rooms:
Transvaal Burgler Proofing ( Tel 011 618 1224) was here to measure the doors and windows. They will do the burglar proofing to ensure our property stay safe. Thanks guys.

New Treatment Rooms

The Children from Lambano Sanctuary were the first to see the new therapy rooms. They were gobsmacked and we took some photo's. The kids just loved the blackboard and the fact that they were allowed to "write on the wall".

The pictures tell the story...you don't need my comments!

A message from Cathy

What an incredible opportunity we all had to contribute to the good work that Thusanani is doing to give orphaned children a chance in life! What an honour and humbling experience. Thanks to the HR team from Yum Restaurants International (franchisor for KFC) for taking time out to transform the rooms into a special place for the children. A special word of thanks to KFC friends and spouses (Andy, Jeff of KFC Braamfontein, Kedibone, Glenn, Steve and Mark) who voluntarily gave up their Saturday to help us!!

Cathy Bishop and the HR Team (Mary, Nthabiseng, Lisa, Nolo, Angela, Vickey, Rob, Javus, Gill, Pam and Gerhard).

The team that did the hard work!

What a beautiful end result!

A Work in Progress

As I type, the staff from Yum, the KFC people, are slogging away doing the transformation. I'll keep you posted! Here are some evidence!

Lyndsay leaves Thusanani

Lyndsay has taken up a position as lecturer at Wits University and we have to say goodbye.

It is with pride that Thusanani bids her farewell. Our vision of making a difference to children’s lives will still be achieved through her. Where she goes now she will reach more students and give training to more individuals that will have the rippling effect South Africa so desperately needs.
It is our wish that the experience she gained and Thusanani will strengthen her on her way forward. We have the highest respect for her knowledge and dedication.
All the best from the Team. We miss you already!

NPO’s take hands

Childline Gauteng and Thusanani are working together to better the outcomes for children. Recently the managers of the two organizations sat down and discussed how better collaboration and coordination between Thusanani and Childline can be implemented. Childline has expressed the need for occupational therapy assessment and treatment for the children from their Sunshine Safe House Project.
Thusanani was more than willing to get stuck in and do the assessments of the babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. Thusanani also offered their training program that was developed specially for people working in the community. This is a jampacked, practical 12 hour training spread over three days which includes
· learning about development of the young child,
· the what why and how of Play and
· a session on making inexpensive toys.
The staff of Childline has provisionally booked to do a training course starting 3 November 2008. They are identifying those children who would benefit from therapy and will start referring soon.

News from the States

We have had some great news from the United States. Miriam is an educator and she wants to spend a couple of months at the beginning of 2009 here in South Africa, volunteering for us. We are excited about having her and we are thankful for people like her that will help us make a difference. We hope you get everything organized in time, Miriam!

The Team @ Thusanani

Adoption Clinic

It's Thursday which means it's Adoption Clinic Day.

We will assess the orphans referred to us by BigShoes Foundation to speed up the process for these little ones to have a "Forever Family".

You see, some of these babies were abandoned at birth, or their mother died while they were still very young. They are medically checked by the paediatricians at Bigshoes to make sure they are healthy enough to be adopted. That's where we come in. some of them have a developmental delay. They have just not been developing as fast as one would have expected. (It is understandable, given their history)

So we assess them and give home programmes to the care givers on how they can best help the baby to overcome the delay. Some of the babies need to come for a couple more follow ups until we are sure they are well on their way. Every now and then we identify a baby with Special Needs and ensure they get the best possible treatment.

It will be a busy day, we have 9 babies booked.

Welcome Little Ones, we wish you well!

The Team @ Thusanani

Proposal writing

What an awesome course this was I (Heleen) went to yesterday!

Sandra Miller presented the course on writing proposals for funding through the Lottery Board. She spoke from her heart and from past experience and we were introduced to the written and unwritten "do's and don'ts" of preparing a proposal for the Board.

It's pretty boring stuff, but she was able to bring it to life and gave practical examples and bring perspective to completing the documentation. I left there all geared up to start writing and ensuring we get all the funding to "educate the nation" on how to prevent developmental dealys in children in institutions, especially orphanages.

If you want to read more about the training please go to www.npotraining.co.za

Have an awesome day

The Team @ Thusanani

Tuesday and counting the hours!

Monday came and went. Becky and Jacky were immersed in the training. It was the day of the Toy making. The participants each had the opportunity to make toys from waste materials. They came up with such innovative ideas. We'll have a write up about that on our newsletter in November. so keep on watching!

Today we have Lyndsay's farewell morning tea. She is leaving us to work at Wits University and we are so proud to let her go. Sad too, but mostly thankfull that we will still have her close by and to know that the students will allways come to Thusanani for their practicals and give us the much needed extra hands to treat the kids.

Heleen is away on a course learning more about writing proposals. We hope this will yield benefits for the kids in the orphanages.

Thanks for all the CV's we are receiving for the OT position here. Wish you could appoint you all, there sure is enough work for you all!

The team @ Thusanani

World Hunger Day

This coming week is one of the Big Makeover.

YUM, the people from KFC, are coming to clean out three rooms in the Children's Memorial Institute and make it possible for Thusanani to have a dedicated therapy area for Gross motor activities, Fine Motor Activities and a store.

It has been on our wish list for some time and now it's going to happen! They've come to do the estimations and measurements and Friday 10th October their magic wand will pass over these areas.

Allready the team @ Thusanani want to start saying thank you to the staff at YUM!

See u Friday.

Team @ Thusanani.

Is it Friday allready?

Can't believe how the week flew by!

We had a hectic week with Wits Students doing their practicals at one of the Children's Homes in Yeoville. According to Lyndsay, our Occupational Therapist overseeing them, they were doing pretty awesome work. Thanks to you guys. We always need more hands and especially more professional hands!

Speaking of which ... we are currently shortlisting for the new full time OT (Occupational Therapist) position. Soon we will interview and then we're getting ready for an AMAZING 2009.

Let's get working before this day too is gone. There are so many of those Little Ones out there that need us, we can't hang around and chat any more!

The Team @ Thusanani