Geberit Social Aid Project

Blog written by Lani van Niekerk

26/10/2012
Today we rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty! We started the day with working in the food garden. The garden is flourishing and the plants are producing veggies in abundance! The teachers and kids from the school have already harvested a large amount of beautiful beetroot. The excess will be bagged and sold in order to raise funds to buy more seeds.

After all the heavy rain, the weeds were growing all over. Along with the school kids, we put in a big effort to rid the beds of all the alien plants. This was followed by the planting of some citrus trees. These will start bearing fruit within the next two years. We also made a pair of new scarecrows that can keep watch over our precious vegetables! The children loved these activities and it really helped them to become more involved in the development of the garden.

A big part of our project is to reach out to the community. We visited an AIDS Haven where they take care of children that suffer from HIV/AIDS. They have 6 “mothers” who take care of the children as if they were her own family. In the future they hope to be able to provide a house for every family. These children also receive much-needed medication every day. We had a great time playing with the little kids (mostly aged 4 years) and talking to the volunteers.

Furthermore, the guys from Geberit are doing a great job with the installation of the sanitation facilities. We have made good progress so far, and are pretty confident that we will finish on schedule, even though we are quite pressed for time.

The afternoon was spent painting the classes of the grade 6 learners. These classes are really old and could do with a new lick of paint! We finished the base coat and started drawing the outlines for the pictures that will go on top. After finishing, we packed up and headed home for a well-deserved rest.