Place of Hope is a shelter for domestically abused women and their
children. The primary goal of the organization is to allow the women
and children to become empowered and reintegrate as functioning
members of society during their stay. The shelter is located in
Athlone, which is a predominately colored community, and all of the women and children speak Afrikaans.
TESTIMONIALS
Cate Blakenship
Fall 2009
Most of my mornings are spent
working in the krich (with the young children) while the mothers are
at work and older children are at school. Then int he afternoons I do
programming with the school age children, or run workshops with the
women. Most of the workshops I do with the children include some sort
of science project, or fun activity with them. With the women, I have
been teaching them how to bake, and also doing photography workshops
with them (as most of them have never taken a picture, or had pictures
of themselves or their children). On Thursday afternoons I help run a
soup kitchen for the people of the community, out of the church
attached to Place of Hope. Because of recent staff cuts due to the
world economy, a lot of the time between projects is spent filling in
here or there.
It has been a warm and welcoming community to come into, and I have
greatly enjoyed my time here. Jenni, the woman who runs Place of
Hope, has been very open to any projects or suggestions that I may
have about how to spend my time there. In the same right, it is also
not somewhere that much direction is given as far as how to spend
time. So it's somewhere that takes a little creativity to be able to find a nitch in.
Email Cate for more information!
 |
 |
|
