ICDM newsletter August 2015
The month of August has seen many events. These included running the Cross Country event on the 15th August, welcoming a youth rugby team from Nairobi, Kenya, hosting the Leeds Metropolitan University Students on every Friday throughout the month and facilitating a visit of the Pasch Schule, courtesy of the Goethe Institute. We have also been involved in a number of activities which include joining the Youth Desk of the EThekwini Municipality and also a trip to the art gallery in Durban.
The Cross Country event was proposed by the KZN Athletics and the ICDM was invited to host the day. Hosting such events helps the organisation to grow its event management abilities and also to connect with other relevant stakeholders in the field. In preparing for this event we worked closely with Puseleso and KZN Athletics. The outcome of this event was really amazing - it turned out to be far more than we had expected. We had intended to host even local primary schools, but miscommunication between the sports coordination in schools made this a little difficult however the fact that runningclubs from Hillcrest, Westville, Pinetown, Old Boys, Inanda Qadi and others took part made this event a great success.
In August we had a chance to host the LPS Kenyan under 16 team from Nairobi. They were in South Africa for a rugby tour where they had the chance to play with a number of local teams. We saw this as huge opportunity to bring our kids closer to others on the African continent. We believe that it inspires them to realise that there is more to life than just Isithumba. It also encourages them to understand that rugby is a sport for all.
The team from Leeds Metropolitan University have been coming to Durban for training at different sports establishments for the past 6 years. We have been very happy to have hosted them 3 times over this period and look forward to many more visits in the future. This August we managed to train with 4 primary schools that we have been working with for some time. Apart from running the school and after school training sessions, we made sure to introduce the students to the local Zulu culture. All together we attended a ceremony at one of our trainer’s homes where they got a chance to taste the Zulu beer! One of the benefits of their visit, besides making friends and trading skills and experience, is that they very kindly donate equipment for our organisation to use. This time they also left soccer and netballs. For this we are very grateful as every donation helps the ICDM to achieve its aims. This type of exchange has been nothing but a great experience for us and we hope that is equally beneficial for the Leeds team.
The Pasch Schule brings together kids from Malawi, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. They host an annual camp and the theme for this year was "You For Your Community". We were invited as ICDM to develop a program for the event on the 28th August. As it was also the last Friday for the Leeds team we decided to integrate the Met students as well. We invited the Subchief to come and tell us about the history of the village and we also invited Zulu dancers as they also represent our community at Isithumba. The theme helped us demonstrate what we are doing to help the development of our community and it was incredible for everyone to feel involved in this development.
Also this month:
We are happy to have been invited to join the Youth Desk of eThekwini Municipality. We hope it will help us to grow our network and promote more development opportunities.
We are also currently working with the Vuleka Centre in delivering the "Lead Through Youth" program. Earlier this year we introduced this program in Isithumba and it enabled ICDM to have at least 2 trainers to work with our youth. This August we took the program to a different village (number 9) as a result of support from the ward councillors’ office. This also enables us to use the sports centre.
We very much appreciate the support we have been given this month in hosting such large groups. The Sports and Recreation of eThekwini has been encouraging these groups to visit Isithumba and the ICDM sees this as an excellent opportunity to learn event management and hospitality and to promote development of the community.
We look forward to hosting another German volunteer towards the end of this year. We are also looking at ways to raise funds so we can keep our programs sustainable. We are currently looking for donations to help install the solar panels that will be given to us by Adsolar who are based in Bothas Hill.
We are ICDM, we are the future.
