The children from the Helderberg Golden Sunbeam kindergarten could hardly believe their luck. This year the Easter bags were particularly well filled.

Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams

Since the Easter egg hunt unfortunately had to be cancelled last year, we decided on a particularly big Easter surprise this year. Under blue skies and sunshine, it was a great pleasure to hand out presents to the children.

However, not all kindergartens have such a beautiful and large play area as our Helderberg Golden Sunbeam kindergarten in Macassar.

In our November newsletter of last year, we reported about the Great Beginning kindergarten in the Asanda Village township. The original project, a smaller manageable one which was to optimise the outside area of the kindergarten, turned into a big project to enable us to apply for government registration, in order to receive public funding in future.
Do you remember the neat, well-run kindergarten of ambitious Naomi Malebo had only one disadvantage: the 54 children could not play outside because the area wasn’t child-friendly?

Before and after: The kindergarten received not only a new artificial lawn and a sandpit but also a new wall to protect it against break-ins, as well as a new shade roof so the children could play outside in the summer heat. Just in time for Easter, we were finally able to fulfill our original plan – to make the outdoor area child-friendly.

Speaking of lawns, the Easter egg hunt in Great Beginning was able to take place outside for the first time! The children were enthusiastic, both about the bulging Easter bags and the soft artificial lawn.

To the great joy of the little boys and girls in several other kindergartens, they also received our coveted Easter bags.

In one of our largest kindergartens, Sikuthale Pre-Primary School, we were supported by our volunteers, Elena and Lia in distributing the Easter bags. We were grateful for their help as over 100 children, once again, attend this kindergarten. Although 150 learners attended it before the Covid-19 lockdown, at the beginning of this year there were only 50 learners. So this development is a positive one for us.

In our kindergarten, EmfundiSweni Pre-Primary School, the children could hardly believe their luck at receiving the Easter bags. This kindergarten is located in the township of Nomzamo and is one of the poorest in the area.

For us, the visit to our kindergarten, Helderberg Golden Sunbeam before Easter, was very special. Our principal, Marinda Manuel, who passed away in January, was very much in our thoughts. A few weeks ago, we didn’t know what to do next. We are now convinced that almost all children and kindergarten teachers have remained loyal to the school. Abraham Manuel, Marinda’s husband, is doing wonderful work in his new role as principal.

In addition to this, we distributed our Easter bags in our Kingdom Kids kindergarten in Sir Lowry’s Pass and Lekkerbekkies in Rusthof. Here, too, we experienced great and happy children’s faces.

But back to Great Beginning. In the meanwhile we have commenced almost all the construction projects, despite the Covid-19 restrictions.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the roof leaks, so too the geyser on top of the roof. Our next step is to repair the leaking roof and geyser. These two items will be expensive.

Thereafter, we plan to build a new kitchen for this kindergarten, as this is a requirement for its registration. Unfortunately at present, this project cannot progress due to a lack of space, as its principal, Naomi, lost her apartment as a result of the Covid economic restrictions and now lives with her family in the kindergarten. Only when she has found alternative accommodation, can we begin renovating the kitchen.

Dear Friends, should you wish to support us in our work, we appreciate every donation. Further information https://www.goldensunbeams.org/de/spenden-mitgliedschaft-ehrenamt/

We hope you all had a happy Easter. Even if it may have been celebrated differently this year, it would have been a special Easter.

We send you greetings from South Africa, where it is still late summer!

Britta & Bernd