Friday, February 22, 2013

Post Floods, Silvestre reports on his fantastic Youth Committee...


A new encouraging testimonial from Silvestre, our hard-working technician in SLM...

"Good evening,
I hope you are all well over there.
Over here life is moving slowly; always with our eyes set on the river, since the flow of Limpopo river increased and according to the water management technicians the water is being drained from South Africa in a controlled way in order to avoid problems.
We hope this information is true and God help us to avoid more disasters like this one.

In the report I mentioned the Young People Committee that I created last year and did not go through. This year just because I was here in Chinhacanine, trying to escape the flood in Chókwe, I managed to mobilize the youngsters to make this project come to life to develop this community. The flood victims were encouraged to rebuild in this safe area, and in a few days this project is becoming a reality. Now many people in this community have plots. Together with my team I’m still dividing the area distributing the land for the flood victims. 

Four days ago the district administrator came here to assess the work done and he was very pleased with the improvements. Yesterday he brought two territorial planning technicians from the District and two from the Gaza Province to help us to divide the plots for the families affected by the floods. And today we were also visited by a few military people who made themselves available to assist us in every way possible.

At the moment this Committee is composed by 15 young students and is called Hluvuka Chinhacanine Youth Organization (which means “Develop Chinhacanine”). The Committee’s mission is to work for the development of the community, in which the youngsters are included, as well as:
  1. Develop the Chinhacanine community in general and, afterwards help other young district people to develop their own communities;
  2. To organize an event that aims to end the violence against women, informing which institutions act in supporting the victims of violence;
  3. Promote an activity (sports/culture) for the improvement of women’s self-esteem, promoting their value and respect in all phases of their life cycle (childhood, adolescence, pregnancy, maternity, menopause and old age);
  4. Promote a campaign to stimulate young people to search for their socioeconomic development through education and work ;
  5. Organize a discussion forum, jointly with the Community Council and the Women’s Social Action Centre, to enlighten the population about the public services and current legislation in force to defend women;
  6. Promote a conference (preferably held by a man) to raise the awareness of men regarding the sharing of domestic chores, responsible parenthood and intolerance for any kind of violence towards women and children;
  7. Disseminate HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases  fighting and prevention methods;
  8. Build improved toilets in all the Chinhacanine community households, since they have been using the streets to relief themselves, this has triggered the appearance of cholera and other diseases;
  9. Study, elaborate, analyse and propose actions, projects, policies; strategies and guidelines that allow the integration and participation of children, adolescents and young men and women in the educational, social, environmental, political and cultural processes;
  10. Ensure the sustainability of the Committee implementing income generation projects to benefit their members  and the Committee itself; 

And a lot more...
I hope to be able to provide more information about this dream that is coming true!

Thank you!
Silvestre Quenha"

Our Emergency Fund is still open!

Help our emergency appeal by making your donation herehttps://mydonate.bt.com/events/algfloodemergency

Every Little Gesture Counts!        

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