Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams
Today we would like to report about one of our Aid projects that is a particularly sustainable one in these times of the Corona crisis, and which creates hope, trust and confidence.
Since it was established in 1972, the Ennepe-Ruhr Lions Club has been committed to the community, to people in material and emotional need, to engender friendly relationships between peoples to ensure world peace, and to address current urgent problems and opportunities.
Jörn-Erik Fröhlich is one of the founding members of the Lions Club Ennepe-Ruhr and a long-time supporter of our organisation. He had the idea of breaking the downward spiral intensified by the Corona crisis, by enabling children of the Helderberg Golden Sunbeam kindergarten in Macassar, near Cape Town, to attend kindergarten again by donating to their school fees.
This has resulted in the Ennepe-Ruhr Lions Club making a generous donation to Golden Sunbeams, which has enabled us to send 20 little boys and girls to attend their Helderberg Golden Sunbeams kindergarten since mid-September until the end of December 2020. They were not able to attend kindergarten for a long time due to their parents being unable to pay school fees because of the Corona lockdown-related unemployment.
No sooner said than done! When we gave the good news about the Lions Club donation to Marinda, the principal, on Thursday, she acted immediately and contacted the parents who are currently unable to afford school fees. The following Monday, 20 girls and boys were able to go to kindergarten again.
Another very important result of this financial support, about which we have reported several times, is the securing of income for our kindergarten teachers. Their livelihood has been endangered due to the Corona virus in recent months – and they are still far from being “out of the woods”.
Dear Lions from Ennepe-Ruhr: with your generous donation you have slowed the downward spiral! Thanks to your commitment, the children can go to kindergarten again, learn again and are, once again, provided with warm meals. Their parents are therefore in a position to pursue a job or to look for a new job due to these economic restrictions. The kindergartens are no longer threatened by closure because the kindergarten teachers can earn an income again.
We, together with the principal, the teachers and the children of Golden Sunbeams say thank you very, very much for this great support!
Before the Corona pandemic, more than 50 children attended this kindergarten. Since then, only 14 children attended school. Now, due to the Lions Club Ennepe-Ruhr, 34 children can learn and play together.
Since the salaries of our kindergarten teachers are still low due to their being very few children at school we, once again, donated a percentage of the salaries to the kindergartens we supervise, for the month of October. This is only due to the fact that our sponsors, friends and acquaintances continue to support us by way of donations, for which we all thank you very much. Without you, it would not be possible.
Fortunately, since the 21 September 2020, the Cape province has been downgraded to Level 1. The number of infections has fallen sharply and is down to less than 1 000 per day. We no longer have a curfew and since 1 October 2020, even Cape Town International Airport has reopened for international travel.
So much for now. We hope you get through these turbulent times safely and remain healthy!
Best wishes
Britta & Bernd