The Family Africa is a faith based organisation bringing real hope for the future to thousands of people from previously disadvantaged groups in South Africa. To this end we work on three levels:
1.Short Term:
Immediate relief through feeding schemes, provision of clothing and blankets and response to local disasters.
2. Medium term:
Education and training including basic skills training, HIV/AID
S awareness programmes in primary and secondary schools and the production of materials to assist prevention and promote attitude change.
3. Long Term:
Spiritual, emotional and psychological support. Taking a look at our history and our residential training centre
Since it opened 10 years ago, our residential training centre has trained full time volunteers from many different countries: South Africa, United Kingdom, America, France, Mexico, Italy and Australia, Portugal, Spain, Germany. At present we have 26 adults and children from seven countries living and working together. The residential centre serves several important functions and acts as a training centre for the volunteers where they receive instruction in counselling, project management, fund raising, HIV/AIDS education, public relations etc. It also provides accommodation and food for the full time, unpaid volunteers so that they can reach out into the community based projects of HIV/AIDS support groups, children’s clubs, HIV/AIDS education in primary and secondary schools as well as youth counselling and Christian leadership training courses. Projects which are ongoing 52 weeks a year only take place because we have the residential centre as our base. The centre also runs camps for teenagers throughout the year where young people are encouraged to follow positive values and make important life choices as well as participate in team building exercises. Approximately 25 teenagers at a time benefit from these in house camps. Seminars on the topics of parenting, education and counselling also take place on an occasional basis. Our centre also acts as place of rest and recuperation for some of our volunteers who are now based in other African countries such as Zambia or Nigeria, where the field conditions are often very difficult. We have a real need to find sponsorship for the running costs of our training centre so that not only this very worthwhile training can continue but also the valuable community projects which depend on the centre for their continued success.
