We had our second mommy-support morning on Saturday 1 October (2016). It was the end of the month so many people went to town to buy essentials and the weather was cold and rainy so there were fewer new moms than we expected and for a number of reasons we also ended up being fewer older moms. We decided to be zen about it and to embrace the idea that whomever was meant to be there was there. And somehow it ended up being a good thing - our new moms relaxed in the more intimate atmosphere and we had really good conversations and happy laughs. We talked about many things, but what stood out was our conversation about the dreams that we still have for our lives.
To me it was interesting that our new moms did not have elaborate, pie in the sky dreams, but humble, service orientated ones. They still want to become social workers, nurses and work with children. Matric is an obstacle in almost every case. I am going to see if I can puzzle out the options and perhaps get someone from the TVET college to come chat with us.
We also talked about the value of developing skill sets - even if it seems small and unrelated - if there is an opportunity one should grab it, it could help you to build a profile of skills that uniquely positions you to earn or to contribute. For example, if we can get 15 people together, provide the venue and lunch - Nal'ibali will come and train everyone on reading to children and starting reading clubs. That is a modest, but good opportunity - we are thinking of getting a whole lot of people (library staff, teachers, people who love books and reading, people who can be reading mentors/buddies) together in Oudtshoorn for a training like that. That might also be something nice for the moms who would like to work with children. It would be nice to find out about any other opportunities for new moms to develop skills that can easily be hosted by a community, please let us know. It takes only a little effort for us to host opportunities like these, but it can mean a lot to people.
Cape Town Embrace asked us to share why we #embracethespark (symbolic of the brain development of little children). We most certainly embrace the spark in Herold and we do it because of the dreams we have for these little children who are part of our group (and the ones who are soon to be born!) and also because of the dreams we have for our own lives and the dreams we have for this country.
To me it was interesting that our new moms did not have elaborate, pie in the sky dreams, but humble, service orientated ones. They still want to become social workers, nurses and work with children. Matric is an obstacle in almost every case. I am going to see if I can puzzle out the options and perhaps get someone from the TVET college to come chat with us.
We also talked about the value of developing skill sets - even if it seems small and unrelated - if there is an opportunity one should grab it, it could help you to build a profile of skills that uniquely positions you to earn or to contribute. For example, if we can get 15 people together, provide the venue and lunch - Nal'ibali will come and train everyone on reading to children and starting reading clubs. That is a modest, but good opportunity - we are thinking of getting a whole lot of people (library staff, teachers, people who love books and reading, people who can be reading mentors/buddies) together in Oudtshoorn for a training like that. That might also be something nice for the moms who would like to work with children. It would be nice to find out about any other opportunities for new moms to develop skills that can easily be hosted by a community, please let us know. It takes only a little effort for us to host opportunities like these, but it can mean a lot to people.
Cape Town Embrace asked us to share why we #embracethespark (symbolic of the brain development of little children). We most certainly embrace the spark in Herold and we do it because of the dreams we have for these little children who are part of our group (and the ones who are soon to be born!) and also because of the dreams we have for our own lives and the dreams we have for this country.
It was so simple to make these bottles. We bought small bottles from a plastics store, all kinds of little interesting things from the Chinese shop - stickers, foam shapes, velt pompoms, dice, marbles etc. We added a bit of water and then the items, filled it up with water and sealed it with a glue gun. We then added a tightly secured ribbon and teething ring. We also pasted a little round mirror on the bottle cap with the glue gun.