The month of October has been a very important month in the life of the ICDM. We have witnessed a number of events to which were very beneficial to us and to others. We continued with our mission of trying to get the Number Nine Sports Centre to work and to run programs. We started support groups together with Hlengiwe, a social worker from Kwamkhizwane, welcomed Kristin to her new home (ICDM), ran sports events and hosted the German 2015 group of volunteers.
After seeing such an amazing venue like the Inkosi Msinga Sports Centre being vandalised on a daily basis the ICDM took it as its responsibility to get it back running. There are challenges that make this problematic and so the ICDM, through its Number Nine New Beginning team, is conducting research that will help identify as to what makes people involved in destroying such a building.
We are very happy with the youths’ dedication in attending the trainings on a Monday to Friday basis and we can now happy to say that we have a team that is willing to do something positive concerning this Centre.
The support groups are aimed at giving the leaders a chance to engage with the one another on issues that affect the everyday life of their own area. Attendance has been really good and all discussions have been really beneficial. We have discussed topics such as substance abuse and teenage pregnancy, just to mention a few. One of the practical difficulties we have is that we have no chairs at the sports centre. Such support groups really help to get the youth feeling that they are the driving force of their own lives and therefore are the people who should lead their own communities. We look forward to support in continuing with these groups so we can really see positive outcomes from them.
Kristin comes to the ICDM as a volunteer from Germany. She is going to be dealing with the administration of the organisation and networking with all our German stakeholders. We welcomed her with a netball and soccer tournament. Kristin participated in the netball matches and did very well for someone that never played the sport.
The ICDM is part of the South Africa host organizations for the German Weltwearts volunteers. It is a tradition that all volunteers get a chance to visit one another's projects as encouraged by the IGR department of EThekwini Municipality. So we hosted the groups of volunteers who enjoyed a tour around Isithumba followed by sporting activities later on the day.
We are hoping that in our next newsletter we will be telling you good news about the installation of the solar system at our centre. For regular updates please don't hesitate to visit our friendly Facebook page Isithumba community development movement.
We are ICDM, we are the future!
