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BBBSSA KwaZulu Natal
Province: KwaZulu-Natal
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Joshika Ramlall
What specific projects, campaigns or aspects of your organisation will you promote at the 2006 Giving Exchange?
The Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme is a state of the art, one to one mentoring initiative, with caring relationships being established between unrelated adults and youth.
BBBSSA provides services to schools, children and youth living either permanently or temporarily in children’s homes, in support of programmes for youth-in-conflict-with-the-law and to children and youth affected and/or infected by HIV/AIDS. In all instances, the children/youth eligible for this programme are identified as “children at risk” or “children in need”, between the ages of 6 to 18 years, living in South Africa. They are identified by either their teacher/parent/social service provider/court or diversion officer as children who could benefit from the attention of an adult outside of their family.
In its essence, the Big Brothers Big Sisters programme provides children at risk between the ages of 6 and 18 years (“Littles”) with the support and guidance of a trained adult volunteer (a “Big”) who acts as a role model, mentor and friend; as a Big Brother or Big Sister. The fundamental objective of the relationship is to encourage positive behaviour patterns and facilitate constructive life choices in the Little. Overall, the desired outcome is for each Little to achieve his/her full potential, have a positive sense of self and the future; the social competencies of making friends and interacting positively with others; the ability to plan positively for their futures by making constructive life choices and decisions, and the inner strength to resist negative or harmful behaviour.
How will your organisation fit and help promote the theme 'giving is not just about money' at the 2006 Giving Exchange?
It has been said that the one single thing that always exists in a successful child, is the presence of a loving adult who has seen, listened to and heard him/her.
Mentoring is a wonderful opportunity to change a child’s life in a simple, but powerful way. It is about building a healthy, trusting and powerful relationship and in the process, develop a child’s capacity for positive, constructive living.
Mentors will:
- Be a friend to the child and maintain contact on a regular and consistent basis
- Be a consistent and positive role model by modeling responsible behaviours such as reliability, respect, honesty and appropriate manners along with a concern for the protection and wellbeing of children
Thus we ask of people not to give their money, but rather their time to children in need of love and attention.
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Define the Wishlists that your organisation will be promoting at the Giving Exchange.
Stuff We Need:
- Digital Camera - the most popular way of holding on to good memories is through pictures. We would like to take a picture of each match on our programme , both to pass on to them as keepsake, also for advertising and recruitment purposes
- Computer Upgrade - similarly to our furniture, our computers are in desperate need of upgrading, as we have continuous problems and at time we lose valuable information
Also as we have expanded our programme to the KwaZulu Natal community, we are in need of furniture for this office
- Office Furniture - we have come to a time where our furniture has stood the test of time. After being part of our office, they are slowly starting to fall apart and we are in great need of office desks and chairs. Also as we have expanded our programme to the KwaZulu Natal community, we are in need of furniture for this office
- Opti- Plan Cabinets, to maintain a proper and an efficient filing system of all our matches and ensure the smooth running of each match
- Photocopier - we spend a considerable amount of money having to make photocopies elsewhere and paying an excess amount to a third party. Our previous photocopier has been a great help to the organisation since our formation, but now it has unfortunately seen its end
- CD/ Radio Player - for our training activities music is a required tool, to allow effective learning
Sponsorship of outings and events:
Each year proves to be a new challenge, as it is our wish to provide every child on our programme with fond memories with his/her Big. In aiming to do so, we arrange outings and events, but we are restricted financially to provide several aspects of an event; namely:
- Food and beverages
- Transporting children from rural areas
- Venues
- Gifts ( toys, books, games, school stationery)
- Hampers for Little
Some Littles tend to miss out on these events due to transport problems.
Stationery - we are in continuous need of stationary such as:
- Glue stick
- Pens
- Scissors
- White board markers
- White board paper
- Crayons
- Prestick
- VIP Software - Pastel - This is required to do salaries
Time We Need:
- Volunteers to become mentors
- Volunteers to assist with fun days/events
- Volunteers to assist with recruitment of mentors
Define the volunteer requests that your organisation will be promoting at the Giving Exchange.
We need a volunteer a minimum of one hour a week to spend with your Little for one year. Think about it. Most of us spend one hour customizing our cell phones, having a manicure or even just watching television re-runs. By volunteering one hour of your time a week, could change a child’s life. You could make a big difference in your Little's life circumstance, through friendship, guidance and positive influence.
If you are interested, please don’t hesitate to contact Big Brothers Big Sisters South Africa. The above is our request which we will be promoting at the giving exchange, as well as assistance to make Fun Days and outings possible for our Littles.
Define your Do It Day proposal.
Assist BBBSSA with recruiting more volunteers to become mentors by handing out flyers to motorists, helping BBBSSA with shopping centre displays, puting up posters at shopping malls and public libraries.
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