Communitarian Work in SOS Children Village

The communitarian work takes place in S.O.S Children’s Villages of South Africa. It is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) located in Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg. This organization is focused on helping orphan children or kids who are vulnerable, abused or not safe. The SOS Children's Villages Association of South Africa is a member of SOS - Kinderdorf International, the largest private welfare organization for children in the world. The NGO receives most of its financial support from European organizations.

The NGO is focused on three areas:

-Family Basic Care (FBC): it consists of the wellbeing of the children inside the villages. The organization also has houses outside the villages under its care. For both the aims are to provide food, take care of, help to build relationships between children and create a family environment.
-Family Strengthening Program (FSP): This sort of program is focused on how the NGO can help the community. It is the contribution of the NGO to the neighbourhood. They established an office in the France community called “The White house” to provide orientation about HIV, nutrition, vegetables gardens and other topics that are required. As I mentioned before, part of the vegetable yield is sold, at low cost, to this community.

-Kinder garden (KG): This is basic education for the little children consisting of 6 classrooms, qualified teachers and didactic material.

I’m going to be working in three areas. I just finished working in the FSP. In this program I worked with a group of ladies interested in learning entrepreneurial skills. The selection and conformation of the group was in charge of Nonhlanha. This lady is one of the managers of FSP. My aim was show this group the importance of work in their own business with feeling and love. I teach about the benefits that bring you if you know how to do price, promotion, place and product.

After three meetings I felt satisfied, because all the ladies were very grateful of me, also they told me about how much they learned. I was incredible, I felt extremely good. At the end of the session they showed me how to dance a typical Zulu dance. Thank you to all the ladies for support me and Nonhlanha to let me do this activity.

The next week I will be working in other area, this time is going to be with children!!!

Week 9

This week I’m focusing on my project at the Permaculture Section of Ukulinga. After I visited the place, I started looking for the people involved in the project. It is not easy when the University is so big. Finally I got to the right people and this moment I got clear understanding of what the research about and the intentions for built. At the end of the project I hope for the place to be used for further research.

Week 8

In this week I received the invitation of the Deputy Manager ofSouth Region of the KZN Agriculture and Environment Affairs Johannes F. Villiers to attend the Annual Research Symposium. I really appreciate the performance of prominent staff in the areas such as natural resources management, soils fertility, crops and livestock production.

The aim of this congress is to expose the last projects in research developed in different parts of KZN with the approach to improve agricultural techniques toward sustainability and improvement of rural areas.

The Symposium started with a realistic and motivated speech about the current position of South Africa in agriculture in the world, the influence of global warming on environment, the urgent necessity to adapt to environmentally friendly methods in agriculture and livestock production.

The presentations were focused on the following topics: planting without ploughing, cover cropping, control diseases, evaluation of varieties of potato cultivator, the potential of cheery research, the contribution of homestead gardens to household’s food security and others.
It was very interesting to be part of this Symposium. It contributed a vision for my research projects assignment. Besides it was a great experience share time with professional people in the agricultural fields.

Besides this Symposium I went for final year student presentations at the Animal and Poultry Science Department. From my point of view the most interesting project was a survey of obesity in dogs, so the student spoke about the source of food and how the human feelings affects the diet of the animal.

I attended one fieldtrip with a group of animal reproduction. We went to place completely dedicated to raise horses for racing. We also saw the veterinarian checking all the females to determinate their fertility status. Also we saw the through the screen of the ultrasound the developing horse foetus. At the end of the fieldtrip we witnessed the mating process.

I was invited for Ms Masefo Mokoma lecture in Bio resources to give a small presentation about Costa Rica and EARTH University. It was in a big classroom, about 40 students. Fortunately everybody could understand me and enjoyed the presentation.

I met the student Nokubonga Mweli who wants to further her studies at EARTH University from next year. She is 17 years old, with a very big enthusiasm for learning and living in Costa Rica. She is planning to leave South Africa at the beginning of December to start a new life in Costa Rica. I wish her the best! She must keep practicing her Spanish! Nos vemos en la U!