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Business
Suite @ El Mizpah Ademaine Uitenhage Road
Withoogte
Nelson Mandela Metro
South Africa.
6000 |
Registration No. 026-152 NPO
BPO No.
930019663
Telephone: +27 (0)41 9555
798
E-mail:
info@hopefoundation.org.za. |
P O Box 12832
CENTRAHIL
South Africa
6006 |
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Education and unemployment are
two of the greatest challenges in South Africa today. The H.O.P.E.
Foundation, with its focus on underdeveloped communities, aims to
address these key areas.
The H.O.P.E. Foundation is a registered
non-profit organisation that provides aid to underdeveloped
communities in the province of the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
What do we do?
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NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
Click on the link below to read/download back issues of the
Hopeful Times, HOPE Foundation's newsletter. Feedback would be welcome.
To download right click on the link below and select "Save
target as"
Hopeful
Times 1st Edition (845kb)
Hopeful
Times 2nd Edition
Hopeful
Times 3rd Edition (1877kb)
Hopeful
Times August 2009 (293kb) |
The Foundation's current programmes can
be divided into three categories: job creation, education/school
assistance and community building.
Job Creation Programmes
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The Zwide Craft
Project. This project is an urban skills development
programme which aims to develop craft skills amongst unemployed
people in informal and poor settlements in the Nelson Mandela
Metropole. Traditional beading craft, fabric painting, fabric
printing, sewing and quilting skills are taught. We focus on designs
with an African motive. Items made in our workshops are sold at
local and overseas craft markets.
Photo right - Adelle Potgieter and
Mandisa Tsheleza with a Umicore delegation led by
Managing Director, Mr Hans Kuehn, at the handover of the
Wendy House Umicore donated to the Zwide Craft Project
as a training venue, October 2007.
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Tsitsa Falls
Eco-tourism Project. The aim of this eco- and adventure
tourism project is to create employment in the rural communities in
and around Lotana A/A and Shawbury, which is situated next to the
Tsitsa Falls near Qumbu.
We plan to open a day visitor centre and
overnight facilities next to the falls. Activities will include
fishing, abseiling, hiking, horse riding and canoeing.
Needless to say this is a huge and
long-term project. Although we are awaiting approval from the
Department of Environmental Affairs, the communities around Tsitsa
Falls (the villages Ngqubusini and Shawbury in Qumbu district), the
Tribal Authority and the Department of Land Affairs are in favour of
the project.
We have held farming training workshops
in Lotana and Ngqubusini villages to improve farming methods to
ensure sustainability. Our methods, based upon the principles of
self-sufficiency farming and farming God's Way, reduce soil erosion,
improves soil structure and increase crop yields.
Staff and volunteers have begun plotting
the hiking trail into Tsitsa Gorge (during field trips undertaken in
May and July 2007), which is the starting point of the two proposed
trails: a 150km trail from Tsitsa Falls to Port St. Johns and a 12km
trail between Tsitsa and Tina Falls.
The project will create jobs for
community members ranging from crafters and cleaners to guides and
gillies.
Above left & middle: Beadwork training,
2006. Above right: Entrepreneurship training, 2007.
Below: The Tsitsa Falls is one of the
largest in South Africa at almost 100 metres wide in the rainy
season (November to January) and about 80 metres high. We have
reached an informal working agreement with On Track Club
to assist us with setting up the trails and they may include our
proposed trail in the 2008 Morgan's Run, an international televised
sporting event. See their website at
www.ontrackclub.co.za.
Below: Trailmaking in Tsitsa Gorge, July
2007.
Photos below - Tina Falls
Double Falls
Eco-Tourism Project. This project is similar
to the Tsitsa project, but serves the community of Ngqongweni in
Ngqeleni, which is situated near the Double Falls. We want to set up
overnight and camping facilities and a trail to the Umngazana River
Mouth which is 40km away. Although we are awaiting approval from the
Department of Environmental Affairs, the community and Tribal
Authority have approved the project. We have held various workshops
in Ngqongweni (See photo below) since 2006, including entrepreneurship training and
beading.
At H.O.P.E. we believe that jobs should
be created in communities (rather than breaking up families whose
members flock to the cities in search of work and possibly ending up
worse off in squatter camps), by using the resources that are
available in each community, whether farmland, natural beauty,
crafts or culture (cultural tourism is on the increase).
We are working with the new traditional
leader, Loyiso Mtingane, to create projects and jobs in the
community. Headman Mtingane has gained the co-operation of the local
municipality to repair the road to the Double Falls. We are trying
to raise additional funds to build a lapa at the Great Place and
fund the signage from the R61, that will service visitors to the
waterfall and the community.
Above left: A young mother learning to
bead in order to care for her baby. Traditionally she would have had
to leave her baby in the rural areas and work as a domestic worker
in the cities, whilst her mother or grandmother raises her child.
Our project gives her and other like her the opportunity to earn a
living in their own community. Above middle: H.O.P.E. Director,
Adelle Potgieter, helping a student at a beading workshop.
Above right: The Double Falls.
School Assistance Programmes
 Pre-School Project. We have built a small community
pre-school in an area of Caguba known as Sun City. The two teachers
and forty learners currently had used a mud-brick hut at a private
homestead before. We have already supplied the school with books and
toys. We plan to also assist the school with fencing and playground
equipment.
We have been involved in different
projects in the communities of Caguba Administrative Area in Port
St. Johns since our founding in 2002. Although there are 9 schools
in the area, none have a school library.
The public library in Port
St. Johns is small, far away, housed at a temporary site and not
equipped for the needs of school-going children.
Therefore, we are
building the Caguba Children's Library in Caguba A/A. The library
will service all nine schools with a total of around 2000 learners
from at least five small rural villages. Construction work has
commenced and it is expected that the library will be finished end
of February 2010.
Below Plans of new Library
 
Proposed Site of the Library and letter from
Chief (click to enlarge)
Hope in SA, a US-based charity, started
by Dr Cyril Wolf for South Africans working abroad that want to give
something back to their homeland, has committed themselves to
funding the building of the library. We are currently awaiting the
registration of the proposed site with the Tribal Authority and the
State in order to proceed.
Special Projects
The H.O.P.E. Foundation administers two
special programmes:
Oasis Feeding
Scheme. This project provides food to children, as well
as ill and unemployed adults, at a soup kitchen in the Nelson
Mandela Metropole. We have a strict policy that the food we serve
must be food that we are prepared to eat ourselves, so our soup is
both nutritious and tasty. Most of our meals have ingredients from
three of the major food groups, namely grains, vegetables and
proteins.
Currently, 200 people receive meals from
these two soup kitchens. The Zwide soup kitchen, under Mrs Patricia Mzozoyane, and the
Missionvale soup kitchen, under Mrs Kim Mankabane and Mrs Lorna
Kuhle, both serve meals five times per week.
Above left: Arthur Bownes of Old Mutual
with soup kitchen co-ordinator, Kim Mankabane, showing food parcels
that were distributed to clients in December 2006 when the soup
kitchen personnel took a much needed break during the festive
season. Above right: Kim serving children at the soup kitchen,
winter 2007. Above: Clients at the Soweto-on-Sea soup kitchen,
August 2007.
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 Purple
Ribbon for Peace Campaign. This project was
started by Ms Adelle Potgieter, who has been nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 & 2006 as part of the
1000 Peacewomen Across the Globe initiative, and is
currently administered by H.O.P.E. Foundation.
The project aims to involve
community groups and schools by creating awareness
around peace building. The notion is often that peace is
the absence of war, but this is a far cry from reality.
Peace includes such diverse issues as human rights, the
rights of women and children, rights to basic services
and healthcare, an end to violence & domestic violence,
an end to crime, justice for all, an end to trafficking
in human beings, conflict mediation and eradicating
poverty, to name but a few.
This particular project also
aims to provide life skills training (especially
conflict management skills) to South Africans from all
walks of life. The focus is currently on small groups in
communities that have a high incidence of violence. The programme
is offered at St. Albans Correctional Facility for youth
offenders. Talks at schools in rural areas are
aimed to change the mindset of poor South Africans from
the current dependence on handouts to one of
self-empowerment. The
programme for juvenile offenders (18 - 25 years old) has
already commenced at the St. Albans Correctional
Facility. The programme includes juveniles sentenced for
offences such as house breaking as well as for violent
crimes such as murder.
This year we
expanded the campaign by training school teachers from
Schools in the Nelson Mandela Metropole as facilitators.
We provided them with the skills with the hope that they
will pass it on to their colleagues and learners.
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Click to enlarge |
Purple Ribbon Peace Pledge |
Campaign Poster |
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Past successes
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Gobindlovu
School Project, 2005. We aided this rural junior
school in Port St. Johns with fundraising, books and furniture
for its Grade 1 and 2 classrooms, which benefits 80 of the 200
learners.
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Siphuthando
Pre-School, 2004. This struggling community preschool
in Missionavale, Port Elizabeth, was aided with furniture and
toys for its 30 charges.
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Entrepreneurship Courses, 2006. We held
entrepreneurship courses in Ngqongweni, Cwebeni and Barcelona.
Participants learned how to start and run a small business. Most
of the businesses that were formed were craft-based and included
fabric printing, beading and cutlery wire art concerns, but also
a bakery and craft shop.
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The Caguba
Craft and Entrepreneurship Programme, 2002-2006. This
rural skills training project has run since 2002 with regular
craft and entrepreneurship workshops in Caguba near Port St.
Johns.
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Community
Building, 2006. We assisted the Cwebeni Horse Trail
in Port St. Johns with much needed reference books and
binoculars to enhance their service delivery.
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Christmas
Party, 2006. Old Mutual Port Elizabeth held a
Christmas Party for 100 underprivileged children in Zwide during
December 2006.
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The Hope
Project This was a
craft and entrepreneurship programme for poor and unemployed
women. During 2006, with a grant from the
National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund, we trained 80 from
Barcelona, Stocksville Heights and Missionvale.
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Blanket
Campaign 2007 100 blankets were distributed to 100
needy children in Missionvale, Port Elizabeth. The blankets
were donated from proceeds of the Umicore Charity Golf Day 2007.
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Blanket
drive 2008 Hope in SA and Umicore sponsored blankets
for the poor in Port Elizabeth and in the Transkei.
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Above : The shacks of Informal settlements
are gradually rehoused in RDP houses, but the poverty remains. The
Hope Project assisted to create jobs within communities such as these. Missionvale, Nelson Mandela Metropole.
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Above left & middle: The Hope
Project - Craft and
Entrepreneurship Training Programme, Barcelona, 2006.
Above right: Training a group leader from Zwide, 2007.
Meet the H.O.P.E. Team
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Miss Adelle Potgieter
is the Founder & Director. She holds a social sciences
degree from UPE. For her role in public & community
service she was nominated for the 2005 & 2006 Nobel
Peace Prize. She is an experienced lifeskills, craft and
entrepreneurship trainer.
Mrs Madeleine Goulding
is the Chairman of the Foundation. She is a qualified
nursing sister working in the private sector.
Mrs Patricia Mzozoyane
is the Vice Chairman of HOPE. She is a beader and
beading trainer from Zwide, Port Elizabeth. She oversees
the Oasis Feeding Scheme in Zwide.
Mr Michael Connolly
is the Treasurer of HOPE. He works as a security system
technician in the private sector.
Mrs Mandisa Tsheleza
is an experienced pre-school teacher, beading trainer
and seamstress. She is a volunteer for our Transkei-based
projects.
Mrs Phumaphi Gobongwana
is a seamstress and beadwork trainer. She assists with
Caguba Library Project and farming training.
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From the Director, Ms Adelle Y. Potgieter – what
motivates me?
“I'm frequently asked why I
chose to do the work I do, as many feel it is too
dangerous to work in the communities I frequent. The
answer is not a simple case of giving back for my many
blessings or having the desire to make a difference in
this world, although both of these play a role. As a
former Police official, who was tasked with identifying
the root causes of numerous faction fights in the former
Transkei, some with death tolls and refugees numbering
in the thousands, I became frustrated that as a Police
official I was unable to help the poor with job creation
programmes and life skills training that could prevent
violent community conflict and improve the qualify of
life of whole communities. It was a simple choice of
switching from depressing body counts after the fact to
life-enhancing hope-giving training that builds peace.
I have a soft spot for our
rural communities. Nowhere else is pride, dignity,
perseverance and a joy for life more evident than in the
face of poverty. I've learnt that poverty is a relative
term. For decades migrant labour has stripped rural
communities of their ability to be self-sufficient by
teaching people that to be employed enhances one's worth
and therefore social status. Western lifestyle patterns
are destroying the unique cultural identities of the
various tribes. Even traditional dress has changed over
the past sixty years! The whole reason for HOPE
Foundation's being is to help these communities use the
resources that are available to them to create a better
quality of life. We want to teach people to take pride
in their unique cultural identity and that being
self-employed and self-sufficient is not only possible,
but desirable.
The informal settlements
around large cities in our country grow daily with
people from the rural areas who seek employment. We want
to teach people to use their initiative and create jobs
in their neighbourhood instead. I've heard of a
statistic stating that only one out of every five people
are entrepreneurs. Those are good odds when you meet a
family with 30 people, like I have. (For interest sake:
it was a man with three wives and 26 children). Many
rural communities have either farm land, a beautiful
natural environment or both. These should be capitalised
upon. That is why HOPE programmes are diverse. We
present workshops in art & crafts, farming (vegetables
and soon also beekeeping), entrepreneurship, and soon
also in eco-tourism (guiding, managing community-based
accommodation and horsemanship).
I simply love my work and I
am still able to serve my country and fellow man in the
process! It doesn't get better than that!”
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We need your support
If you would like to support our work by
making a financial contribution, our banking details are as follows:
Account name: H.O.P.E. Foundation
Bank: ABSA
Branch code: 500517
Account no.: 4055768984
Swift code (For international transfers): ABSA ZA JJ 632005.
Address for international bank transfers: El Mizpah Ademaine (Brakrivier
farm 394/16), Uitenhage Road, Rocklands, 6229.
PLEASE NOTE: All donations
to our charity are tax deductible for SA donors and companies,
because we are registered as a Public Benefit Organisation with the
South African Revenue Service.
Contact details
We invite you to contact us for further
information or with your offers of assistance.
Mobile: +27 (0)84 5809400 (Ms Potgieter)
Email: info@hopefoundation.org.za
Some of our projects are sponsored by
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Hope in SA |
Umicore Autocat SA (Pty) Ltd |
National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund
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