Children concentrating on painting at the nursery school in Francistown, Botswana…
SOS Children's Village Serowe is now home to 41 young children. With just three family houses fully functioning at the moment, it's a tight fit, but every one seems happy enough to finally be living in the new village.
- Lisa
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Children concentrating on painting at the nursery school in Francistown, Botswana
I like to see these children busily enjoying their painting. I have a little peice about our work at SOS Children's Village Serowe. At the time of this report there were just three family houses fully functioning and it was a tight fit, but every one was happy to finally be living in the new village. Here is the report:
Five further houses are on the verge of being available to relieve the congestion and provide a caring home to more children, and the SOS nursery is due to enrol its first students in April.
Completing the brand new village is a clinic, gardens, paths and a road through the village. Four further family houses are planned and SOS Children's Villages Botswana is confident that local donations will soon be available to allow these houses to become a reality.
Eventually, the village will provide a secure, permanent and loving environment for 120 children and the SOS nursery will have space for 100 little children, taken from both the SOS Children's Village and the surrounding community, in four colourful group rooms.
Serowe was the birthplace of the first President of Botswana, Seretse Khama. It also inspired famous South African author Bessie Head to write "Serowe: village of the rain wind" where she interviewed prominent residents of the community, which is Botswana's largest village with a population of around 90,000.
It has been estimated that in and around the communities surrounding Serowe, there are up to 30,000 orphans and the number of child- and grandparent-headed households is increasing steadily.
SOS Children's Villages has two existing villages in Botswana, located in Francistown and in Tlokweng, just outside of Gaborone.
- Mary
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Children from the SOS Children's Village Mombasa recently held their second art exhibition at the prestigious Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa.
These drawings are from an exhibition, which displayed over 70 pictures from children at the SOS Children's Village Mombasa. The art exhibition was held at the four star Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa. This is a little report I found that describes the art club who made the drawings and the exhibition itself:
The 70 pictures, made by members of the Mombasa village art club, who range in age from nine to 16, was aimed at raise funds for the village, as well as awareness of SOS Children's Villages worldwide. Whitesands Hotel generously gave the venue without charge.
The Mombasa village art club meets every Saturday and Sunday for two hours each day, although during the school holidays the club is open three times a week. The club is run by an art teacher, Sebastian Kiilu, who teaches full time at the Mombasa polytechnic. Sebastian gives his services to SOS Children's Village Mombasa for the cost of expenses only. Apart from the exhibition, the members also regularly enter competitions, such as the Campaign Against Drugs, which was organized by the Kenya National Museums specifically for children from children's homes. Out of a possible 13 prizes the children from the Mombasa village received nine.
In this exhibition the children used canvas as a medium, and exhibited their own pottery and sold their own silk screened tee shirts advertising the work of SOS Children's Villages.
Guest of honour at the event opening was the managing director of the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), Brown Ondego, who described the art as, "refreshing, wild and imaginative." As a departing gift Ondego was presented with a painting of Father Christmas done by one of the children.
Ten year old Kevin had several pictures in the exhibition. One of his favourite subjects is the tribes of Kenya. His SOS mother, who attended the opening, said that she was "very, very proud of him". Fifteen year old Khadija also had several pictures on show. She loves the art club and wants to do design as a career.
The SOS Children's Village Mombasa opened in 1979 and has twelve family houses. It also has a nursery school and an SOS primary and secondary school.
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