Archive for the ‘Project Update’ Category

With the FIFA World Cup wrapping up this weekend, I am certain that the excitement…and disruptions…will begin to dissipate. It has been a wonderful time for South Africa, but it is now time for us all to get back to the grindstone.

We are well on our way to a productive third quarter. All our schedules are in place and our facilitators are prepared.

Our Durban Children’s Home Language Support Programme is up for an overhaul. This programme is in it’s third year running and we are confident that our newest strategy will benefit the children on a greater scale. We have been given two new venues for this programme; the newly refurbished ‘information centre’ for the seniors, as well as the lovely play room for the juniors. We believe these will be much more conducive environments for learning.

St. Monica’s Home for Children has taken on two additional Language Support classes, starting 19 July 2010, and we look forward to that.

Our Project Discover participants are up for a challenging 3 months, before they go off for their much anticipated work experience opportunity at the end of term. The participants have grown exponentially since the start of the programme in February. The extension work activities provided to them have become increasingly demanding and they are learning a great deal.

Our Baitul Aman Children’s Home programmes are continuing as normal for the third term.

We also have a few interesting prospects in the pipeline, watch this space for information.

Project Discover is our Career Development Programme which has been running at the Durban Children’s Home since the end of February.

These workshops are aimed at children who are about to be discharged or disengaged from the care facility due to their age. The workshops aim to prepare the youth for the real-world of seeking employment and provides them with the skills necessary. These skills include: Goal-setting, Planning, Writing the Letter of Application and Business Etiquette. Each month, we have a guest speaker and all workshops strategically build up to a real work experience opportunity sourced by the participants themselves.

The programme has been running with much success and has been hugely exciting for those concerned. The children have now prepared their letters of application and we wait in anticipation for the upcoming workshop in July.

Our Language Support Programme is our longest running and most well-known programme. This programme is continually being refined and developed and we now run our LS in a variety of organisations.

Our newest sites are The St. Monica’s Children’s Home on the Bluff and The Baitul Aman Children’s Home in La Mercy.

To date; Baitul Aman holds foundation phase classes and St. Monica’s is running LS from grade R right through to Matric.

We have just tied up our first term in operation at these sites, and are very proud of what we have already achieved. We are finalising schedules for the new term and are looking forward to a productive third term.

A big thank you to The Durban Children’s Home for the referrals.

As I watched the people around me leave, in search of better “opportunities”, as I listened to people complain about the state of the country, I recognised a tremendous need for the development of language in South Africa. I saw an opportunity to not walk away or sit back and complain but to make a difference, no matter how small.

A colleague/friend of mine appropriately defined ELF Projects as a Social Enterprise, rather than just a ‘business’. This is not a business to me, nor is it just a job, ELF Projects has grown organically over the past few years and has become a huge part of who I am.

Kyla Calder



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