Pani Piasa!

A challenge the Nepali way! Each team will create:

• A team name • A team flag

• A team mascot  • A team colour

The Aim?

Set a mascot and flag up in the boat

Race around Tel Barahi Temple Island

Pick up 3 cups of water

Paddle around the island again and then head back to shore

The winner will be decided on who makes it back to shore with the most water! Draw breaker: Race to island and back. First back to shore wins.

What are they doing this crazy challenge for? To raise much need funds for two vital projects:

• Football boots for the Street kids

• Equipment/furniture to set up a women’s class in Pame Village

We are trying to raise £350

To follow this crazy challenge, which will be taken place on the 29th May 2013, check out the GVI Nepal blog.

Just Giving: http://www.justgiving.com/help-disadvantaged-children-and-adults-in-Nepal

Global Giving: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-disadvantaged-children-and-adults-in-nepal/

Join us on Facebook

The GVI Charitable Trust is now on facebook!  Join us, like our page and keep updated with the incredible stories and photos from our projects around the world.  We hope you will enjoy being involved with the work we do to support these initiatives,  be it in education, conservation, health or disaster relief, we have over 30 projects that we are invested in supporting long-term to reach sustainable goals. These are our projects –we give you stories and photos as they happen.

We hope you enjoy being a part of the Trust community and we look forward to seeing you on facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/GVICharitableTrust

Donation pay Teacher Wages in Mombasa

Donations are used to pay the wages for two full-time teachers for six months at Olives Rehabilitation Centre’s primary department , months November – April and towards six full time teachers in Nyota(Precious Vision Care Centre’s kindergarten and primary departments) for the months of Jan  through March

The schools GVI support in Mombasa are informal or ‘slum’ schools, which means that they cannot afford to pay their teachers the standard Kenyan minimum wage. Despite this fact, the teachers employed by the schools remain dedicated to the students’ education throughout the school terms and even into the holiday periods. They generally live in the same communities in which the schools are based, where unemployment levels reach up to 80%.  Although their wage is low, they are hugely grateful to have a guaranteed monthly income, no matter how modest.

The dedicated and tireless local teachers are one of the school’s greatest resources and are invaluable in terms of the schools ongoing success. They provide stability and continuity for the children, and have a deep understanding of the backgrounds of the students, and often the individual family backgrounds.  The local teachers are a key source of support to GVI volunteers taking classes in the field, and are often called on for their language, discipline and teaching skills and knowledge with other local teachers. This is also a condition of the schools becoming formally recognized institutions, part of the centre’s strategy to achieve self-autonomy in the long-term.

To read more about this project, please have a look at our page for Education and Support for Disadvantaged Children in Kenya

#MDGmomentum 1,000-day mark to the 2015 target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Playhouse at Ikhayalethemba

Creative play is an important part of our programme at Ikhayalethemba Village. The great thing about creative play is that children develop their social skills; interacting, talking and sharing. This play is also so essential to the development of children’s physical skills, language and problem solving.  One of our key goals at Ikhayalethemba is for the children to develop strong English skills and through Creative play children have many opportunities to develop their English language.

When we had some financial donations for Ikhayalethemba just prior to Christmas, we decided to put it toward a playhouse for the children. A playhouse provides an opportunity for children to role play and to interact with each other in a positive way. It is a wonderful opportunity for children to engage in Creative play. We decided that the playhouse would be a Christmas present from Father Christmas.

There was great excitement at Ikhayalethemba when Father Christmas’ present arrived early.  The children looked on with anticipation as a van drove up and in the back were large wooden shapes.  They sat as a group to watch their gift unfold.  It wasn’t long before the children could recognise that the shapes were going to make a playhouse. As the workers put the playhouse together the children sat attentively. Once they realised what it was going to be, they started planning what they could put in it.  The carers were joking that they would put their own beds in there to sleep, much to the amusement of the children.

Once the house was erected, the workers stained it and so the children had to wait to explore for an hour and a half whilst it dried.  They did this well and managed to line up an array of things that they thought would be suitable to use inside the house.  Already the children’s creativity was kicking in!

Since that first day the children have loved their playhouse. They have developed all sorts of role play situations and it’s lovely to see them play so cooperatively.  It made a great stable for our Christmas Nativity and many of our class lessons have been done inside the playhouse.

If you would like to support this project, please see our project page for ways to make a donation. You can also subscribe to the GVI Charitable Trust blog to get regular updates, or follow us on twitter.