iThemba Projects is a non-profit organisation that is based in Sweetwaters near Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal. They strongly believe in empowering people to bring the lasting change their community dreams of, because “when change is sustainable, all of us win”.
With our sponsoring of the mentorship of an iThemba Asidlale Early Development Centre, Ascot Tours has joined a “growing tribe of passionate, dedicated people from around the world who believe in contributing towards a new story of whole community restoration”.
iThemba believes handouts don’t fix poverty. They instead focus on establishing sustainable community restoration. They do this focussing on four aspects that research shows will bring the largest structural change to the future of the community.
1. Giving children access to quality Early Childhood Development
iThemba do this through the building of a new community led system of quality Early Childhood Development (ECD), providing training and mentoring to teachers at 26 local ECD centres, partnering with 400 families through their home-based ECD mentoring programme, re-igniting the community-led Sweetwaters ECD Forum and the iThemba preschool.
2. Giving children a loving adult role model
iThemba do this through providing healthy trustworthy mentors and role models to children. These mentors teach life skills classes, take children on camps and visit children one-on-one in their homes.
3. Giving children a sustainable source of nutrition to reduce stunting and promote food security and brain development
iThemba do this through equipping volunteers at 36 local ECD centres and schools to have productive permaculture food gardens, mentoring visits and training.
4. Creating an opportunity for local youth to volunteer in their own community while being mentored and prepared for future success
The Year Of Your Life (YOYL) programme serves as a gap year for students to give back to their community. This is done through mentoring and courses as well as providing experiences and opportunities to prepare them for a successful future.
iThemba also have a number of supporting projects with the biggest being their construction project. This is done to develop the skills within the community to build facilities the community needs while upskilling the previously unemployed. Each member of the construction team learns at least two marketable construction skills. In time iThemba hope that this team will be able to build the ECD centres and other needed facilities.
For more information, please visit www.ithembaprojects.com