Polokong News

What a wonderful, amazing and lovely day! We had close to 60 people helping with the painting of the day care centre, representing 21 different companies. Paint, food, drinks and water were also in large quantities donated by various companies. To top it all up, 7 elderly joined us. To our great pleasure, one of them also did a little painting.

Thank you, volunteers from Shofar Christian Church for visiting the elderly and assisting with cooking and cleaning. Thank you also for your gift of a Bible in Setswana. 

 

Thank you, Safari Destinations, for donating blankets and shoes! This is so welcome in the cold wintermonths.

Thank you so much, Desert & Delta Safaris for your gift of linen for the day care centre.

The windows and doors are in! 

Enough food came in to give all the elderly a Christmas parcel. Thank you, Safari Destinations, for organising this wonderful food drive and thank you, people of Maun for all the food you donated.

Yes, the roof is on!!!

The last of the blankets and pillows have been handed out.

The cold winter has arrived. Thanks to a very kind lady, many elderly will have warm feet and thanks to Safari Destinations, elderly also received blankets and pillows.

The striking elderly of Maun (for more pics, see the gallery). Thank you, Tania Muche for the beautiful pictures.

We are very grateful for our donors who are continuing their support in 2018. Due to the heavy rains, the building of the day care centre has been slower then expected. Sadly three of our elderly passed away within a few weeks.

We had a lovely Christmas lunch. The elderly enjoyed the wonderful food and also each others company: "You can bring me here any day, so I can meet my friends". All made possible by an amazing number of vulunteers.

Another amazing month. Through Travel for Impact we 6 received trunks in which the elderly can safely keep their belongings and from the Selebi Phikwe Rotary Club we received 8 wheelchairs. Thank you all so much! And.. the building of the day care centre has started!

September has so far been an amazing month. First we received a gift of $1000 for which we are very grateful. Next the news came that we can finally start building the day care centre. So on Saturday 9 September, we broke the ground!

A new volunteer has joined us! Her name is Tsotlhe Dijoh. Together with Lesang Segwai, our field coordinator, she attended a First Aid course, kindly made possible by Safari Destinations.

Thanks to various gifts, we could hand out clothes and blankets for the cold wintermonths.

The Christmas lunch was attended by 230 elderly! The board thanks all the donors and volunteers who made this event possible.

Two blind elderly ladies have been made very happy with a toilet. Thank you Mike and Liane Merbeck and Michiel and Annelies van Hee-Rijksen for your generous donations which made this possible.

The community bus is a big hit. The elderly use it to fetch their pension at the post office, visit the hospital and go to the shops. For Lesang, our field coordinator it is now much easier to visit the elderly and bring them food. Mike and Liane Merbeck have promised (and started already) to donate $100 per month. Thank you so much! Other great news is that Travel Adventures provides warm meals for the three blind elderly in the Sitatunga area.

Lots of good news. Mberu Mutunge has started as our new part time volunteer. She will look after the 3 elderly who joined the project last month, as they live in the same neighbourhood (which is quite far from town). We thank Conny Berends and Laura van der Heide who donated 60 euro and Safari Destinations has increased their monthly donation and provided the use of a community bus that will start next month. We can’t wait!

Three blind elderly ladies from two different families in the Sitatunga area joined the project. They receive Nutri drink on a daily basis.

Safari destinations donated blankets and clothes, just in time for the cold winter months. John Carothers gave a radio and warm clothes to our elderly who lost his in the fire last month and donated also clothes for some other elderly. Thank you all very much!

One of our elderly left the project as she moved in with her sister. We are very happy for her.  Brenda Mackenzie donated clothes and crockeries. Thank you so much, Brenda. Unfortunately it is not all good news this month, as the hut burned down from one of our blind elderly. He lost all his possessions, including his beloved radio.

On behalf of the elderly we are very thankful for the generous gift of 525 euro (6300 Pula) from the congregation and the council of the Protestantse Gemeente at Neede (Netherlands). Then later we received more good news. The Protestantse Gemeente at Neede has decided to donate 50 euro each month for the whole of 2016. This means we can continue our food programme and even extend it, or attend to some other urgent needs.

December was a month of celebration. On December 12th, 100 elderly attended he yearly Christmas lunch. It was a very happy occasion, with lots of singing and dancing. It was also a month of good news for the elderly, as six Dutch families have started to give monthly donations.

A warm thanks to mrs. Debra Grobbe, for her donation of USD 300 to the project and to Scott and Megan Grobbe who visited the elderly in (a very hot!) Maun and gave shoes, clothes and money. We are also very grateful for the 6 families in the Netherlands who have started monthly donations. All these gifts together mean that we can continue to deliver food parcels and warm meals to the elderly in 2016. Thank you all so much!

A warm thanks to mrs. Debra Grobbe, for her donation of USD 300 to the project and to Scott and Megan Grobbe who visited the elderly in (a very hot!) Maun and gave shoes, clothes and money. We are also very grateful for the 6 families in the Netherlands who have started monthly donations. All these gifts together mean that we can continue to deliver food parcels and warm meals to the elderly in 2016. Thank you all so much!

A lot of good things happened this month. The elderly are all doing fine, considering the circomstances. Safari Destinations made it possible for our field coördinator and one of our volunteers to attend a two-day trauma traning workshop. Maun Artist Association donated P700. A Canadian couple visited our plot and is interested in developing a relationship with the project.

Two ladies from New Zealand visted the elderly and donated toiletries. We are also very happy with a donation of P1100 received from a Dutch lady.

One of Polokong's blind elderly will be consistently supported with freshley cooked meals. Photos taken at Polokong in March, will appear in the first semi-annual report from Travel for Impact. Please contact us for further details.

Travel for Impact came to interview some of our elderly clients, taking their stories and pictures for their first semi-annual report.

This month, we had a new elderly join the Polokong project. She was assisted in getting her pension, allowing her to buy some new clothes. Polokong also supports her through providing warm cooked meals every day.

A sincere thank you for all teh donations made for December. With it all, there was  plenty of food to share this month.

We hosted a lovely Christmas Lunch on December 13^th, with plenty of food, it was such a joyful gathering. Along with the delicious food, there were also hampers of chocolate and toiletries for elderly to take home. A big thank you to all of the volunteers for worked through the night to get the lunch ready in time.

Lots of donations were made towards our Christmas Lunch and Christmas hampers. Thank you all very much!

Visists to Polokong were made by tourists from Poland,who also brought some food for our elderly with them. The banana's were most appreciated by our clients.

Polokong has partnered with a local organisation, Travel for Impact. This is great news, as Travel for Impact will provide the necessary resources fior us to work towards becoming sustainable. Tourists from France also generously donated P300 for food and mosquito nets.

Journey of Discovery from Canada helped to build a fence around the plot given by the local land authority. The local Boy Scouts also stepped in to help build the fence and clear the bushes. The team did an amazing job.

Exciting news: the Land Board has allocated a plot for us, where we will be able to build a day care centre and eventually a home for the elderly.

A student team from Leadership Exchange, New York, America were here for 2 weeks. They did a great job cleaning houses and compounds for our clients. For the elderly folk, it was really nice to have some young people around to chat with.

Lesang, has visited eighteen elderly and assessed their needs. Most urgently, two elderly have no food, but can prepare their own meals, one elderly has no food and is not able to care for herself and six elderly have enough food, but still suffer from malnutrition due to a lack of vitamins and proteins. The good news is that an anonymous donor has provided enough funds for food parcels, and Lesang will prepare meals for the other old lady. A total of ten elderly will now receive Nutri drink on a daily basis.  All of our elderly will be visited regularly.

Very good news - Lesang Segwai has joined Polokong as our new field coordinator. Just in time, as Nomsa’s time in the project is coming to a close. Lesang is also willing to take over the cooking.

Many thanks to the group of tourists travelling with Abendsonne Afrika who donated P7000 to the project.

There are four elderly in the project who regularly receive Nutri drink, and one also receives a warm meal every day. Our field workers Caleb and Josh have found other opportunities, so they said goodbye to the project at the end of December. We are happy for them, and hope that we will find new, dedicated members for the program. In the meantime, Caleb will continue to take the Nutri drink to two elderly and our last field worker, Nomsa, will continue with preparing warm meals.