Amakhala Community/Projects 

The Isipho Vulnerable Children Centre cares for Orphans & Vulnerable Children, also providing support & education in our local town, Paterson. Amakhala is involved heavily in generating money and donating time to the Isipho Centre.

Twice a week, Volunteers are asked to visit Isipho and focus on both indoor education and outdoor exercise. Within the classroom, Volunteers can help with coordination, numeracy, recognition, language and basic social skills. Outside, games are used to educate and teach English, sharing skills and provide exercise to the children. The Volunteers also help by assisting with the vegetable garden, which helps to provide a balanced diet to those eating at Isipho. Nothing from the vegetable garden goes to waste, either by using cut-offs in soups for the children, or recycling peelings into compost to fertilise the plot.

Isipho offers so many children a place they are able to call home because of the care, food and safety they receive. The children that Isipho cares for are known as OVC’s, this stands for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, these children need all the love and care they can get.
Those attending Isipho daily are fed breakfast and lunch, with snack time during the school day at 11am. 80 children are given afternoon meals. The aim is to be able to provide 200 children with food in the afternoons 5 days a week. A Food Parcel scheme was set up providing vegetables, samp, sugar, maize flour and mieliemeal to 50 families for 6 months of the year in the local community.

Other community projects include the allocation of school uniforms for the children who do attend the local schools in Paterson. Money raised and government funds also enable the purchase of clothes which are given to the children as Christmas presents. Presents such as toys and toiletries are given at Christmas to those who do not get clothes or uniforms. With the help and support from donations, Isipho now owns its own property and no longer live under the threat of being evicted from the present government owned premises. We hope to make the new property into a more homely environment for the children who live there.

Social Development aims are: 

•  To establish Early Childhood Education facilities in the form of pre-schools and Grade R classes,
•  To establish education bursaries, primary, secondary and tertiary.
•  To facilitate skills development to existing staff and unemployed members of the local disadvantaged community.
•  To facilitate opportunities for income generation amongst the unemployed.
•  To develop a sense of community amongst the Amakhala staff thereby strengthening relationships.

Our focus is: 

•   Education
•   Social Responsibility to our community
•   Awareness of HIV& HIV related illnesses.
•   Strengthening relationships and developing a sense of community
•   Providing opportunities for income generation
•   Developing and expanding the capacity of existing staff.

Community Upliftment Projects 

Three projects are currently running or are in the initiation of doing so, these include:

•  Vulnerable Children and Isipho Safe-house
•  Amakhala Craft Centre
•  Vegetable gardening for children