February 2023

Dear Friends,

We bid farewell to 2022 and welcome 2023 – with best intentions to continue to achieve!!

We look back with gratitude – especially for your generous support of Kinderhilfe-Kapstadt last year and from which generosity all 6 current projects benefitted.

Unfortunately, the challengers for the people of South Africa have not diminished – in fact the opposite is the case. These known circumstances make our work significantly more needed, in fact essential, and even more urgent.

Since mid-January, the school holidays are over. The allocation of the children to their different classes has been completed – and, from the beginning of February, all classes began their new learning programmes.

Little Lambs

Kinderhilfe-Kapstadt/SEEDS Trust welcomes a new Principal: Ethel Kubalasa

This year big challenges and changes await Little Lambs!

After almost 15 years, our long-time principal, Geraldine Daniels, is stepping down from her position and will, in future, devote herself only to the administrative tasks of the EDC Centre. Since the number of children has doubled to almost 300 since 2009, we had to accept that, going forward, the Principal’s workload could no longer be handled by only one person.

Geraldine Daniels

We owe so much to Geraldine! She has run the centre with great benevolence and dedication; nothing was ever too much for her. Geraldine brought about great changes like registering Little Lambs with the Department of Social Development, as well as the Grade R classes with the Education Department, in order to obtain Government subsidies. Both of these very labour-intensive and time-consuming tasks were great achievements. Without these subsidies, the Educare could never have survived financially. The only option would have been to increase the school fees – substantially!!

With the increase in the number of children, more staff have been needed. Geraldine encouraged the staff to continue with their studies and to further their training – resulting in all teachers now having Level 5.
Little Lambs are known beyond Hout Bay for the academic achievements of its children and our ECD Graduates are appreciatively accepted by the primary schools in and around Hout Bay. On the annual enrolment date, parents queue outside the gates of Little Lambs well before dawn – or even spend the night there – in the hope that they will secure a place for their children.

Geraldine knows many children and their parents personally and is well known in Imizmo Yethu and in Hout Bay. Not only do the people appreciate her personally and professionally, but they ask her advice as she is trusted to always have an open ear for the concerns of the parents and her teachers. We are happy that Geraldine will not leave us completely but has agreed to continue to take care of all the administrative matters under our new director, Ethel Kubalasa. In addition, there will be a transition/handover period of 6 months during which these 2 ladies will manage Little Lambs together. At the end of this 6 months’ period, Geraldine will continue in an administrative capacity only and on a half day basis.

Ethel Kubalasa

We are grateful finally to have found in Ethel a competent and professionally well-trained new principal who is in no way inferior to Geraldine. At just under 50 years of age, Ethel is vital and full of new ideas that she intends to introduce and implement at Little Lambs. This relates mainly to providing exemplary early childhood development and pre-school education for the 300 children – plus developing the school’s strategic policy and raising the teaching level of the 18 teaching staff and strengthening their motivation.

Ethel will also be responsible for ensuring that the school complies with the regulations and curriculum of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development and must meet their administrative requirements. In consultation with the SEEDS Trust, the Principal will oversee and direct the school’s expenditure, prepare the budget and manage operations
accordingly.

There is no denying that these forementioned additional staff costs are a major challenge and this cost will have an extreme impact on the budget for Little Lambs. Nevertheless, this change-over is unavoidable – especially as Geraldine is already ten years over the school’s retirement age – so Little Lambs must make way now for a motivated and younger new force.
In order to make the financial loss for Geraldine more acceptable, Kinderhilfe-Kapstadt has committed to pay (for her dedication and her many years in office) a severance allowance especially since Little Lambs only introduced 2 years ago a pension fund for its employees.

We have often stressed that Little Lambs is more than just an average Daycare Centre.

– It is a safe place and an educational institution for children from the township.
– It is a loving and trusting environment with motivated teachers.
– It is a place where the children are fed daily with nutritious and balanced meals.
– Most important: It is a special place where children are taught to “DREAM BIG” regardless of their past or present circumstances.

Please continue to help us make these dreams come true and to enable us to do more for the benefit of these children so they can have a future ….

Dietrich F. Liedelt Stiftung, Hypo Vereinsbank (Hamburg); IBAN: DE04 2003 0000 0602 0695 44;
BIC: HYVEDEMM300, Verwendungszweck: Kinderhilfe Kapstadt – Little Lambs
SEEDS Trust, Standard Bank, Constantia, Account No.: 10164773493,
Branch Code: 025309, Swift: SBZA-ZA-JJ, Reference: Kinderhilfe-Kapstadt – Little Lambs

We are incredibly grateful for the generous support received from you in the past and, we hope, for the coming year. Please know that it is not only the financial support that we value but also the care and encouragement you give us so we are encouraged to carry on.

With heartfelt thanks from

Elke and Marlis