Success Stories

Lily of the Valley provides 120 children and young adults with a home, delivering holistic care in a healthy environment and ensuring they learn values and skills needed to succeed. Social workers and house mothers provide daily care, manage medical & day-to-day needs while guiding the children to develop routines (meals, reading, storytelling, playtime.)

An erratic water supply, shutting off at times for several days. This has a negative impact on health and adds to costs of buying and sourcing water.

Provide a consistent fresh water supply to the village, including a borehole. This will allow for the harvesting of rainwater.

No longer having to focus on their daily water rations, Lily recently added an additional house for the Caregivers and Kids. The facility has also added Bluetooth speakers and a radio, enabling them to listen to music and have a connection to the outside world. These improvements contributed to the community feeling and ownership learning in the houses.

Caregivers in largely rural areas of KwaZulu Natal Province need practical training to ensure kids in their care have access to quality basic education. Adult illiteracy is high and HIV/AIDS is prevalent. The adult students need to improve their own learning skills in their native Zulu language, thus opening the doors for their student charges to learn more as well.

A need to deliver ongoing, on-site training, workshops, and materials for a wide range of topics, including:

• Classroom practice
• Literacy
• Sexual abuse
• HIV/AIDS
• First aid
• Early childhood development

Rotary considers basic education and literacy to be one of six key areas of focus. We partnered with Operation Upgrade to teach adult learners literacy, numeracy, and related practical skills. The curriculum included Zulu literacy, teaching students to break sentences into words, phrases, and phonetic syllables.

927 disadvantaged students lacked proper toilets, proper changing rooms, safe drinking water, clean surroundings, and basic health information. Poor water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities were distracting. Pupils wanting to use toilets would go home, sometimes unable to return. Schools are key to developing life skills on health & hygiene. Children also influence family behavior.

“As with many schools in the area, we faced issues with funding,” says Rajen Govender, Principal of Phoenix Secondary School.

While most of the school’s revenue is raised from school fees, many of the pupils come from disadvantaged homes and are on scholarship.

Rotary clubs raised funds to provide improved sanitation, proper toilets, gender-specific changing rooms, safe drinking water, rainwater harvesting, and conservation programs.

“This will be a tremendous benefit to the bright young pupils of Phoenix Secondary who will now be able to remain focused in class and feel better due to clean sanitation areas. A pupil can be proud to come to learn,” says Mr. Govender.

76 children under age 5 and 12 staff members at the Sekusilezulu Pre-school in South Africa were required to use dangerous and unsanitary “long drop” uncovered pit toilets with no privacy or fall protection. Only two were available, and the existing pit toilets were in the open air and facing a main road. Children using the pit toilets were exposed to passers-by and most were unwilling to use toilets even when needed.

Provide the crèche with clean, hygienic, safe, secure, and private toilet facilities, including an alternative to the use of municipal water by harvesting and storing of water at the facility. Increase security for the children attending the crèche, making the facility more conducive to learning by installing fans and lights in the classrooms.

The Rotary Club of Richards Bay designed and built a system for water harvesting and toilet facility; installed fans and lights throughout the school; and installed security fencing. Upon completion, female students had four private toilet stalls; male students had three urinals and one toilet; and staff members had a toilet for each gender.

Though so many of us take this sort of thing for granted, it’s considered critical infrastructure for this poor community.

There’s an extensive need to help the very low grade 12 pass rate of learners, particularly in these rural schools where pass rates of 40% are common.

11 schools were targeted with immediate needs, with principals, teachers, and Department of Education Circuit Managers all vying for influence in which schools would get helped.

A pilot project in one school using digital video lessons displayed through LED TV sets, causing an immediate increase of 75% in students passing their studies for the year.

Despite being the hometown of musicians, sports stars, and the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Missionvale Care Center is in one of the poorest areas on the planet, requiring help in…everything. High on the list of aid requests are support for education, literacy, disease prevention, and medical treatment.

Run by a non-profit, Missionvale Care Center is charged with running schools; extra-curricular activities (chess, choir, Music, Ballroom Dancing, Sport); adult education/training; child support/development programs; adult skills training facilities; community gardens; and a crafter’s unit (making curtains, placemats, hand bags, aprons, pillows, etc. for sale).

Missionvale Township is home to many of the sickest of the sick in South Africa; where AIDS is the scourge that does not lessen, and where the statistics for HIV infections, unemployment, malnutrition, poverty, and sickness are beyond belief. Added to this, the Center runs a nutrition/wellness unit; a clothing warehouse; and a church/community hall.

In short, they have their hands full.

The Rotary Club of Port Elizabeth West focused on helping in education, literacy, disease prevention, and medical treatment, recognizing both the immediate and long-term benefits they could have on hundreds of lives every week. They purchased computers and technical equipment to provide a computer lab for the students of the Missionvale Primary School, simultaneously buying medicine and medical supplies to help manage the chronic heath challenges prevalent in such impoverished areas. Within a year, they had helped improve the quality of life for a significant portion of the local populace.