Child Sponsorship in Mwandi

Definitely the highlight to my week was my time with Mushabati, the boy that I have sponsored for 2 years now. He is 14 years old and the eldest of 3 sisters and 3 brothers. They all live in a mud hut with their mother, who was left a widow a few years ago when her husband, a fisherman, died from HIV.

After school on Tuesday Mushabati met me at OVC, where his siblings visit for feeding, and took me to his house. His English was not great, but he was quite excited I could tell and we had some laughs and small chat on the way. He was caring for his youngest sister who would have been only a year or so old.

I spent a few hours with him and his mother – I was worried that he might have to leave school to help care for his siblings but thank God seriously, for the OVC Project with takes care of this! I guess this is where you really see that the project has helped; Mushabati was a part of the feeding program while younger and it is through good health and nutrition that kept him at school. The sponsorship program then kicks in, which funds their education. I told his mother that I will continue to sponsor him throughout all his basic school, secondary and college if he wishes to follow his dream and be a doctor – though English was limited, I did sense an overwhelming sense of appreciation from her which was so nice I couldn’t even describe. To top things off I gave him some gifts from SAPol’s Blue-light/ community programs donations (thank you Port Augusta Police!) and it was a Christmas this boy had never had! I can’t wait to hand out the police hats and the Police visit to OVC later this week!

There are still plenty of children that need sponsorship to go to School. Being here now I can’t explain how important this is – perhaps just imagine if your own child was left playing in the dirt because you didn’t have enough money to send them? I dropped into the school on Friday with another Volunteer here while we took photos of kids for their sponsors, and you can feel the appreciation. They know what we are doing and what it means so please consider sponsoring one of these kids. I will post more photos of the school next week as Mushabati has welcomed me to visit his class which I know already will be another amazing experience.

Current Sponsorship Prices: Mwandi Basic School (Grade 1-7) $70US

Mwandi Basic School (Grade 8-9) $130US

Secondary School (Sesheke) $370US

Only children demonstrating suitability for Secondary/college education are offered sponsorship.

Please email uczovc@gmail.com for a sponsorship brochure or contact me when I get home! (Or post comment with your email for me to organise personally while I am here...)

Other than that, working with the Police has been interesting to say the least, time with the staff at OVC has been great and I took my first Sunday School Class ever! I’ve also been doing some training with the watchmen which has been hilarious! I will post another blog later in the week with photos for that! Spending time with the kids at OVC is the most heart-warming experience and being already half-way through my stay here, I know its going to be very hard to leave...