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­ Typical scene of everyday life in the township: Chicken feet are grilled at lunch time.

Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams,

With each new day we return to a more normal life in the Cape area: More and more children are returning to their kindergartens and we can finally continue our regular tours through the townships. Unfortunately, after our long absence, we found that several things were wrong and that there was an urgent need for action.

We cordially invite you today to join us on our tour through the kindergartens in the townships!

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At Lekker Bekkies Edu-Care we have replaced the defective geyser in the kitchen with a new model.

Lekker Bekkies is the small kindergarten in the Rusthof township, where three architecture students from Stuttgart planned and built a new kindergarten with our help in 2019.

The kindergarten still has the capacity to take in more children.

For this reason we asked our volunteers, Lia and Elena, to create a new Facebook page to advertise the kindergarten and to attract new children.

The appearance of Lekker Bekkies on facebook is friendly and cosmopolitan. All relevant information is presented in a clear and understandable manner.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that this measure is successful and that Florentia the principal can look forward to many new registrations in the future.

At Great Beginning in Asanda Village, the geyser was also defective and had to be replaced. You will probably remember the Great Beginning story, in which we only wanted to make the outdoor area child-friendly and which we are now promoting extensively, so that it meets the requirements for state registration.

The old geyser was previously installed on the roof. Since the roof is unstable and leaky and the device was far too heavy, the new geyser has been installed outside.

We have also covered the new geyser with a wooden bench so that the children can sit outside.

We bought a new refrigerator for our Helderberg Golden Sunbeam kindergarten in the township of Macassar, because the old one had “given up the ghost” after many years.

For several months now, we have supplied some of our kindergartens with prepared and allocated meals at the beginning of the week. Since these naturally have to be cooled, a refrigerator with an integrated freezer compartment is essential.

At the beginning of the year we bought a “Book Nook”. This is a kind of mobile bookcase that, with the support of the kindergarten teachers, invites the children to borrow new learning games, to learn by playing and to discover the world.

­ The little ones sit curiously in front of the “Book Nook” and are excited to see what surprises the new bookcase has to offer. ­

­Our support can also look like this: Zanele, our wonderful principal from the Bright Future Edu-Care-Centre in Asanda Village, was desperate because she did not know how to pay a fine of over 1.000 Rand. The City administration imposed the fine because the wall of her house is too close to the neighbours property. Only when the penalty fee had been paid could she apply for the registration of her kindergarten, in order to finally receive assistance money from the government after approval has been given. So we gave her the money and she paid the fine the next day. The kindergarten registration process can now continue.

Zanele was moveded to tears and cried for happiness when we gave her R 1.000. With so much gratitude and humility, we also found it difficult to hold back our tears. ­

Our Emfundisweni Pre-Primary School in the township of Nomzamo is famous for its unique vegetable garden, which has been created over years of collaborative work and which the government named “Best Vegetable Garden in a Township in South Africa” in 2014. The harvest contributes to the healthy nutrition of the children and is also sold in the community.

At the moment we are repairing the irrigation system, which is fundamentally important for the garden, and we have bought a new mobile pump for it.

­ Our principal Nomalizo is very proud of her mobile water pump, which will make gardening much easier for her in the future. Before that, she and the children could only water the garden with watering cans.

Nomalizo also asked us to donate one or two fruit trees, and of course we were also very happy to support that. Maybe one day Emfundisweni will have the chance to become “Best Orchard in a Township in South Africa”! ­

A clear case for the plumber: a leaky tap and two defective toilet flushes at Sikuthale Pre-School. We help here by asking one of our plumber to carry out the repairs. A relatively small service for a very large kindergarten with usually 150 boys and girls in the Asanda Village township.

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Defective sanitary facilities in times of Covid-19 – that shouldn’t exist. We are happy to cover the repair costs here immediately.

­ Most recently we installed an artificial lawn for the Siseko Pre-School in Asanda Village so that the children could play outside. Shortly thereafter Covid occured. When we visited again, the principal Pretty told us about her great desire: a large 10 liter kettle. We have agreed and will not only pay for the purchase, but also for the installation of the device by the electrician.

During our visit to the Playway Pre-Primary School, Rosslyn the principal told us that the sand in the sandpit had to be replaced due to the Covid-19 regulations. We have promised to deliver and pay for the new sand for the sandpit.

In addition, we have also agreed that the kitchen should get new LED lights before the large winter nights set in. ­

Dear friends, that’s it for today. We hope you have received an insight into our “daily business” and can imagine the small and big worries our kindergartens have to struggle with. Sometimes we provide only very, very small services that we provide in order to achieve lasting results for the children and their families. But we couldn’t do all of these things if we didn’t receive your many donations and support services.

That is why we, from Golden Sunbeams e.V. say THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts to the many sponsors, friends and acquaintances who support us. Your sympathy and donations have motivated us and opened up new opportunities to help the local people in this extremely difficult situation.

We wish you all the best

Britta & Bernd