“When stakeholders work together, good things can happen,” Anton Bredell, Provincial Minister for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning said, referring to the official handover of the site of a planned activity centre for the Nuwerus Crèche on the West Coast today.
During municipal public participation and ward committee engagements, the plight of the Crèche at Nuwerus was identified for attention. The Nuwerus Crèche is the only facility within the area that is still housed in an informal structure. The vision is to create an Activity Centre for the crèche inside the building of the church, situated next to it.
Minister Bredell thanked the following private and government departments who made contributions to the project:
- Nuwerus Uniting Reformed Church availed a room to be used by the ECD as an activity center.
- Santam, which donated R60 000 for the revamp of the activity middle, and R20 000 towards Diakonal Dienste in support of their programmes.
- The Asla Foundation contributed R110 000 for fitting out the Activity Middle.
- Department of Correctional Services will be providing cleaning services.
- Woodenscapes donated and installed the Play Equipment (Jungle Gym)
- Vredendal Signs donating the signage for the facility.
- The Department of Infrastructure donated the wash basins, and its sports committee, which donated R2 500 towards the project.
Minister Bredell said the project was coordinated through the Department of Local Government’s Citizen Interface Programme, which focus on improving the interaction between the people of rural communities and government entities.
The purpose of the Citizen Interface Programme is to build the resilience and self-sustainability potential of deep rural small nodes and communities in the Northern areas of the Matzikama Municipality by ensuring access to basic government services and information, as well as linking external and internal resources to localised needs or challenges. It is essentially a partnership programme, and has since its inception, successfully delivered various projects.
The Programme has over the past few years put various efforts and emphasis on supporting and revitalising the early childhood development centres in the area. All this was done in partnership with the Department of Education, as well as other state and non-state partners. These include amongst others: Providing toy-libraries and educational materials, registration of facilities, scoping reports and identifying funding partners to revamp and rebuild facilities.
Africa Fact: Africa is a continent with clearly defined borders and 54 independent countries. The largest African country is Algeria, occupying around 7% of the continent’s
territory. Seychelles is the smallest African country, occupying 115 islands stretching along the mainland’s eastern coast. Morocco is the most popular travel destination in this part of the world,
South Africa is the second most popular destination, followed by Egypt and Tunisia.
Crazy Eights
An retired elderly couple visit London..
They get picked up from the airport in a london black cab and head off into the city for some adventure.
The cab driver say \”where you from guvnor?
Husband. \”we\’re from South Africa\”..
The wife is a little hard of hearing asks her husband.
\”What did he say?\”
The husband turns to his wife and says louder \”the cab driver asked us where we were from, I told him South Africa!\”
The cabbie continues \”I was in the merchant navy years back… I got to drop anchor down your way, a few times in Johannesburg\”
The husband replies \”oh wow that\’s where we\’re from originally, now we\’re in Cape Town.\”
The wife asks the husband again \”what did he say?\”.
The husband again relays the unheard conversation \”the cab driver says he spent some time in the navy and went down to joberg\”.
The wife smiles and nods.
Skylark
Diary of an Englishman after he moves to South Africa….
**August 1**: Just got transferred with work from London, UK to our new home in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, South Africa. Now this is a town that knows how to live! Beautiful, sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. I watched the sunset from a deckchair by our pool yesterday. It was beautiful. I’ve finally found my new home. I love it here.
**September 1:** Really heating up now. It got to 31 today. No problem though. Living in air-conditioned home, driving air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun every day like this. I’m turning into a sun-worshipper – no blasted rain like back in London! Had the back yard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. No more mowing lawns for me! Another scorcher today, but I love it here. It’s Paradise !
**October 1:** The temperature hasn’t been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it’s windy though. Keeps the flies off a bit. Acclimatizing is taking longer than we expected. Fell asleep by the pool yesterday. Got third degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed three days off work. What a dumb thing to do. Got to respect the old sun in a climate like this!
**October 25:** This wind is a bastard. It feels like a giant fucking blow dryer. And it’s hot as hell! The home air conditioner is on the blink and the repair man charged R200 just to drive over and tell me he needs to order parts from @#$# Johannesburg. The wife & the kids are complaining.
**October 30:** The temperature’s up around 40 and the parts still haven’t arrived for the fucking air conditioner. House is an oven so we’ve all been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bleeding R4 million house and we can’t even go inside. Why the hell did I ever come here?
**November 4:** Finally got the fucking air-conditioner fixed. It cost R1,500 and gets the temperature down to around 35 degrees. Stupid repairman. Fucking thief. If one more smart bastard says ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I’m going to fucking throttle him. Fucking heat! By the time I get to work, the car radiator is boiling over, my fucking clothes are soaking fucking wet and I smell like baked cat. Fucking place is the end of the Earth.
**November 9:** Tried to run some errands after work, wore shorts, and sat on the black leather upholstery in my car. I thought my fucking backside was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh, all the hair on the backs of my legs and off my fucking behind. Now the car smells like burnt hair, fried bum and baked cat. The Weather report might as well be a fucking recording – hot and sunny. Hot and sunny, Hot and fucking sunny. It’s been too hot to do anything for 2 bleeding months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Fuck!!
**November 15:** Doesn’t it ever rain in this darn place? Water restrictions will be next, so my R5,000 worth of palms might just dry up and blow into the fucking pool. The only things that thrive in this hell-hole are the fucking flies. You don’t dare open your mouth for fear of swallowing half a dozen of the little buzzards!
**November 20:** Welcome to HELL! It got to 45 degrees today. Now the air conditioner is gone in my car. The repair man came to fix it and said, ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I wanted to shove the car up his backside. Anyway, had to spend the R2,500 of the mortgage payment to bail me out of jail for assaulting the stupid fool. Fucking PHALABORWA! What kind of sick, demented idiot would want to live here!
**December 1:** WHAT!!!! The FIRST day of Summer!!!!
You are fucking kidding me, right?