I just looked at their website. It's a great project, together with local (unemployed) people, building this is up,
 


and I also love their garden project, the smocking clothes ánd patchwork items

You look proud on this picture, and you can BE very proud of yourself Annie!!!


 

Pixette... its Vrygrond not Vygrond!  ;)  Vry + grond means Free Earth whereas Vy means fig.  lol
 

Pixette
 

WOW!! I just looked at the website and saw the photos of the crafts they make to support themselves. The food garden is impressive. What is most im pressive is how healthy everyone looks "So far, for the last four years, we've managed to keep all the HIV+ people in our care alive. Treatment is essential but decent nutrition and emotional support are the other parts of the formula,"
 

Great news! :)
 

Many thanks for the update, Annie & Pixies.  I hope to see more updates & photos as this project progresses.

"Not rocket science."

None of our challenges are.  I just watched Bill Clinton on Letterman last night (an American late-night talk show), and he managed to re-charge my batteries and restore my optimism.  He has a knack for that.  As do you, Annie, with stories like this one.

I've been really discouraged lately by all the idiotic noise that muddies discussions and efforts toward change; it's at a fever pitch right now in the U.S. over health-care reform.  But President Clinton so eloquently emphasized how it's all the little efforts....just regular people with big ideas, getting a little help finding the right partners to realize their ideas....these are the efforts that really make a difference. 

And even our biggest, most intractable problems are so amenable to this approach.  Lack of potable water, malaria, malnutrition, starvation, HIV/AIDS....these scourges of negligence have killed hundreds of millions of people, each and every one of them a preventable death. 

But people like Stephanie Kilroe and Annie Lennox and millions of others with names we'll never know, soldier on. This growing army of warriors for change will win.  I may get discouraged by stupidity and hatred and greed sometimes, but in my heart, I truly believe that those fighting the good fight will win in the end......

Thanks again for sharing the story of the Etafeni Day Care Centre.  Great people, great idea, great impact.

 

Nothing better for one's psyche than gardening.  Fig trees are great, too!    I just wanna say that it really warms my heart and soul, all these life- affirming projects that you and so many kind, socially conscious people are involved in.  A bit of dirt under the fingernails is a topic for another day. 

 

Well said Patricia!  "I may get discouraged by stupidity and hatred and greed sometimes, but in my heart, I truly believe that those fighting the good fight will win in the end......"  Amen.