The Hope Centre - Cynthia's Dream
The vision for Hope Centre stemmed from our very dedicated and passionate project partner Cynthia Isaacs. Her dream was to provide a day care centre for up to 20 underprivileged children in the local community where they would be provided with a nutritious meal, taught basic education and interact with other children in a safe setting. With the help of GVI and the Charitable Trust this dream was made a reality in March 2011 when Hope opened with 10 children. Since March, the centre has flourished so much so that Cynthia’s vision was fully accomplished when 10 further children were enrolled at Hope and began this week.
It has been truly humbling to see a project so needed as Hope develop at this pace. It is clear to see the pride on the parent’s faces when their children go to the gate at the end of the day waving work they have completed and the children are proud of themselves when they shout “Teacher, teacher” and point to what they have done. For children who previously had no structure to their day and who often roamed the streets playing with bricks and old car tyres such stability is so vitally important to introduce into their lives.
The benefits of this routine can already be seen through a change in the some of the new children’s attitudes after only four days. For one child, Eltoni, the realisation that he was no longer free to roam the streets during the day was a surprising one. On the first day he tried to scale the fence, on the second he stood and cried at the gate but by the third and fourth day he is participating actively in lessons, sleeping well during naptime and running around with the other children playing football. For me, this just shows that programs such as this really do make a difference. Eltoni has learnt to trust and respect us as people who are here to care for him, be his friend and someone he can rely on. I hope this continues and the other new children begin to believe this too.
0 comments:
Post a Comment