April 2016

ICDM celebrates Freedom Month
The month of April is a historical month in all of South Africa as we celebrate the 22 years of democracy. ICDM exists because of the many past heroes who fought for the freedom that we have now - the freedom to form and be part of any organisation you wish to be part of. We celebrate especially the contribution made by the youth to strive for our liberation, this is what inspires the ICDM team to change and impact lives of the young stars in a positive way. Their heroic deeds have helped to shape the future of South Africa, and at ICDM this is what also makes us strongly believe that we can help shape the future of the kids we train. ICDM celebrated Freedom Month by teaching the youth about the history of South Africa through education, sports and cultural development. However we also taught the kids, most importantly, that with freedom comes responsibilities.

Trampoline fenced
Last month ICDM installed trampoline to widen the range of the activities we offer to the kids. In the beginning of April we managed successfully to put fence around the trampoline to ensure safety of the kids at all times and to make sure that the kids only play under the supervision of an ICDM member. Since the installation of trampoline we have seen the increase of kids who participate in our after school programs. The recent developments have had an encouraging reflection on the ICDM team as it has enabled us to impact a large number of kids in ways that will direct their lives in a positive direction, in both sports and academically. The daily activities are all running smoothly as usual.    

Volunteers 

Moreover ICDM hosted Cory from Chicago, in the United States of America. Cory volunteered with us for two weeks, teaching the kids English and Mathematics in our after-school classes. Even though his time at the ICDM was short the work he did with the kids was amazing. His teaching helped to prepare the kids to be confident in themselves and that allowed them to speak freely in front of a fairly large audience. Cory, who is a business consultant by profession, did not only impact the lives of the kids at ICDM but also gave us advice and recommendations on how we can better run the organisation to ensure sustainability and success. Thando, who is newly elected board member of the ICDM, took Cory to Pinetown to teach young adults Financial Mathematics. The students he taught were doing a one month course with World Changers Academy. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Cory after two weeks as he continued on his journey to other parts of South Africa in order to equip other youth with skills.  We would like to say a huge thank you for his input into the ICDM.

         

Up-coming events

Sports Event launch

The anticipated annual ICDM Schools Sports Event will finally take place on the 12th of May. This year's event will be bigger and better- normally previous Schools Sports Events catered only for four primary schools. This year’s Event will also cater for high schools. The sports tournament will feature other sporting codes which have not been contested for in previous events; volleyball and 100 metre run. The ICDM members Mondli and Sparks went to Inchanga Primary School to the launch of the School Sports tournament. The launch was a success as we introduced the tournament to the Schools Sports coordinators and this was welcomed with much excitement. 

Hosting

The ICDM will be hosting two young women from Oman in May.  They will help by teaching Maths and English in our partner school and also with the after school programs at the ICDM.  We look forward to hosting the girls as they have offered to introduce their cultural dance to our youth.

We will also be hosting the one and only Oliver, who completed a fund-raising run in Bremerhaven for the ICDM last year. We are very excited that he is visiting the ICDM to contribute to the program with his skills in Athletics. Oliver will also help in preparing the 6th of August's cross country event together with Puseleso and the ICDM team.

Volleyball workshop

The technical skills behind every sport are very significant in the success of a club. ICDM trainers were invited to attend the volleyball coaching workshop in Durban township at Kwamashu Indoor Sports Centre. The workshop was organised by KZN Volleyball and Volleyball SA in partnership with Ethekwini Municipality. The invitation was not only to the ICDM but to other sports organisations and to schools’ sports coordinators. Our trainers were equipped with both the theory and the practical skills on how to be a successful volleyball coach.  This was very useful in enabling us to be more confident in teaching this particular sport to our youth.

ICDM We are the future!!

March 2016

Yet again, a month filled with activities and achievements. March in South Africa is well known as a Human Rights Month when everyone is reminded about his or her rights, and of the responsibilities that go with these rights.  ICDM take great pride in making sure our youth exercise their rights by creating a platform that is accessible to all.  We empower the youth through educational activities which enables us all to make sure their right to free education is achieved.  An invaluable and growing network of sponsors help the ICDM to create a structure where access to information for the youth to realize their dreams is made easier.  

 In March the ICDM welcomed Ray Lawrence from England, who came to help us to run our educational activities.  Ray taught our youth how to write and speak English and how to engage with people from different cultures around the globe when they meet them.  He taught them about intercultural relations and how they can relate to different cultures.  His English classes worked like a charm as our youth are confident in communicating in English and we would like to thank him for his excellent input into our educational program. 

        

The ICDM team and its youth bade a fond farewell to Pierre with dance and singing performances by our youth. We were sad to see him go.  Pierre-Antoine Vernet was with us for more than a month and the ICDM team extends it gratitude to him as he not only focused on his assignments but he also showed great leadership.  We hosted a Brazilian group through Pierre. They came to Isithumba and taught our youth to dance the Capoeira.  It was an amazing experience for them – they also taught about the history of Capoeira and it origin, which is Africa! 

      

Moreover the ICDM welcomed Katelyn and Becca from North Carolina in the United States of America. They were with the team for few days and we took them for a tour of Isithumba along the beautiful Umgeni River.  

ICDM is proud to announce the first newly established Youth Committee led by our youth.  The Committee aim to discuss social issues that affect the youth where they live. Secondly the Committee will be involved in the ICDM’s daily activities and have a voice in decision-making, equipping them with leadership skills. 

In October last year the ICDM hosted a group of photographers who were working on eThekwini Parks, Recreation and Culture’s ‘Ngale: Seeing Beyond’ project, where contributors had to take pictures in places beyond Durban.  The ICDM team and youth committee were invited to attend their photographic exhibition in Durban where they were given a very warm welcome. The proudest moment for our youth came when they viewed photos in the exhibition that were taken in Isithumba.

  

ICDM would like to thank UBUNTU - Gemeinsam Sind Wir Stark Fur Afrika for their generous donation this month which enabled us to install a trampoline. It is with such kindness and support that we are able to keep moving forward. Ubuntu is an organization based in Germany which was established to support children in global programs such as the ICDM.  We know that the new trampoline will not only add a significant activity to our site but it will give the Youth Committee a responsibility to fulfill.  We understand that the trampoline is a lot of fun for youngsters but we will install a fence around it so that it can be utilized only under ICDM’s trainer’s supervision to guarantee safety.

                      

  

We also acknowledge the contribution made by our friends in Bremen, the doctors at Praxis Dres. Geschke/Reick. Their donation will help us in executing the School Athletics Programs in the four primary schools we work with. The ICDM, together with the high and primary schools, is preparing for the biggest schools event that we host annually and which consists of a number of sporting activities. The event will take place later on the month of April.  We are very thankful to the doctors for helping us to work towards this event.

The ICDM continue to work to empower young people.  In the month of April we will be including the Number Nine trainers in our programs, giving them the opportunity to take an active part in our programs. In April we will be hosting Cory Roberson from America who is a business professional and he will be sharing a range of skills with the ICDM.  One of his main tasks is to teach our youth spoken and written English - the ICDM deems the usage of the English language essential for the youth as it will enable them to engage meaningfully in the global context.

ICDM We are the future!!

February 2016

Yet again in February, in the month of love, Isithumba Community Development Movement (ICDM) welcomed more visitors; Milena from Switzerland and Pierre from France.  Milena was not just a volunteer but also a member of the ICDM team as she came to inspire our youth to pursue their future and to remind them to never let their background define them. Milena had an amazing experience as she truly clicked with our youth, adapting so well to the life style of the Isithumba community and its culture. 

                                        

Through this experience she was able to easily fit into the Zulu culture and she interacted so well with everyone.  Her stay enabled the children to be exposed to the Swiss culture.  This proved to be an excellent opportunity for everybody to experience the cultures of two very different countries. It is with great sadness that we had to say goodbye to Milena last week. ICDM wishes her a prosperous academic year as she will be pursuing her teaching degree later this year.  

Over the past months we have been struggling to reinstate our BMX bike activities into the daily programs because our BMX bikes were broken and needed to be fixed.  Through great kindness and the spirit of giving we have managed to raise funds and get the bikes repaired. Therefore we are proud to announce that we are bringing back the BMX bike program, with the assistance of Pierre who is also helping our youth to repair the bikes.  Soon the kids will be riding again!  Pierre will be volunteering for a month.  He will also be working closely with Mondli to put grass on our volleyball pitch during his stay.  We thank him for his work in the project – it is much appreciated.

                    

This month ICDM was also thrilled to welcome back Christian from Germany – a former volunteer who fell in love with the organisation and has become more than just a volunteer but a partner who has been actively helping the organization to succeed. He sacrificed his holiday to come to help us with our administration and also with the organisation of our work.  We are very grateful to him for his monthly donation to the ICDM which pays for our internet connection.  Thank you very much Christian.

February was filled with excitement and joy from the kids and the ICDM team as we reintroduced canoeing back into our programs.  ICDM aim to empower youth, possibly through all sporting codes and this water sport inspires team work and inclusion. It is very enjoyable too!

   

ICDM is looking at strengthening its stakeholders by expanding its existing school programs. Our annual schools event will take place in April.  This year we aim to include more schools, including secondary schools, not just the four schools as we normally do. This will ensure inclusion of all schools in the communities where the organization resides.  We hope to make this possible with the help of our stakeholders; the Government International Relations Department and the Sports and Recreation Department. 

ICDM humbly thanks Femke Christin Kujas and Matthias for their heartily welcomed €800 donation.  We are very grateful to receive this donation as it will be very helpful in ensuring the schools programs are running in full force. Thank you very much.

Our youth have been working tirelessly to fund raise for their Reunion trip later this year. So far they have raised R180 by selling clothes to the community. Slowly but surely we are hoping to raise about R450 from this fund raiser.  This amount will contribute to their monthly savings.

We are looking forward to hosting more volunteers next month, to contribute in developing our community through culture, sports and educational activities.  Through word of mouth we have been able to receive more international groups to explore our activities.  Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Kristin this month and we thank her for her work in Isithumba, but we will always welcome volunteers to help us to achieve our aims.  If you are interested in joining us please view our web page at http://isithumbacdm.wix.com/icdm and contact us for more information.

ICDM We are the future!!

January 2016

All at the Isithumba Community Development Movement Team wish you all a healthy and exciting 2016.

Rafael and Kristin.

The year began with an eventful January. For a while we had a new member of the team for 2016; Rafael from Brazil. He arrived in mid-December as a volunteer for six weeks, helping with the afternoon program, but unfortunately in late January he had to leave. He is an avid soccer player, training with Isithumba Soccer Club All Stars. He gave us a lot of good times and was adopted with enthusiasm by the community. He was a tremendous asset and we thank him for his valuable contribution. Thanks Rafael, you’ve given us some fantastic days and you will be sorely missed!

The new school year has started and our ICDM program is full of a wide range of activities for the children to take part in and enjoy.  In Township Number Nine we are looking for a suitable space to run our activities whilst the sports centre, Inkosi Msinga, is renovated.  With no end to in sight for this work it is important that we find a large enough venue for the youth group to continue their work and to maintain our programs. We hope that we will be successful in our search by February so that we can continue to collaborate with our social worker, Hlengiwe from Kwamkhizwane, with whom we have many social questions to discuss.

In Germany a sponsored activity with the Climate House in Bremerhaven took place. As a result a generous donation to the ICDM was made.  With such a donation we can continue with our vision for development of the youth in the Valley of a Thousand Hills. For further Information please read about this on the website of the Klimahaus at  www.klimahaus-bremerhaven.de/de/aktuelles/news/meldung/article

Our highlight of the month of January was the visit of 21 young people from the island of Reunion.  On a sunny Thursday morning we received our friendly guests. We experienced many eventful days full of activities such as volleyball, table tennis and football tournaments, intercultural dance, song and language, traditional healing and hiking.  Even something as simple as going shopping was a great event.  Our Sports Event, which even Durban Tourism advertised, was the successful culmination of this transcultural exchange.  We are delighted to have been invited to Reunion and are working hard to enable this exchange to happen.  Many thanks to everybody who made this week possible.  It was fantastic!

In February we are looking forward to two new volunteers; Milena from Switzerland and Pierre from France. We are very excited to meet them both and to enjoy learning about their cultures! 

For regular updates about our work and events please like our Facebook page Isithumba Community Development Movement at https://www.facebook.com/Isithumba-community-development-movement

The entire team is looking forward to the activities of the ICDM in February!

We are ICDM.  We are the future.

November 2015

November has been yet another good period in our successful year. This month we have seen a number of projects in which the ICDM's dedicated youth have been involved. We thankful to Oliver from Bremerhaven who ran in a marathon in Germany to gain sponsorship for the ICDM.  We also made a very good connection with the organisation, Sail Africa through our neighbour Tim from Inchanga.   Mondli attended the Wältwet Conference in Cape Town. We are also happy to share with you that our Number Nine New Beginners’ Team is also growing through the programs we run there, including the weekend support group with Hlengiwe. In addition we are happy to say that the ICDM have begun to invite even more international volunteers to support our work.

Oliver, through the support from the Bremen Track and Field, had the opportunity to run the Comrades Marathon and while he was in Durban he decided to visit Isithumba where he was introduced to the ICDM. He fell in love with the organization and resolved to support our good work. Back in Germany he ran a marathon held in Bremerhaven in mid-November in support of the ICDM.  We are very happy to see that our international partnerships grow through the word of mouth and that our work is being acknowledged.

Through a meeting called by eThekwini Municipality's Sport and Recreation Department, we have been very lucky to meet with the Sail Africa Team, a youth development foundation. During the month of November we were given an opportunity to take our Number Nine and Isithumba youth to the Durban port where Sail Africa runs its sailing lessons for youngsters. Because the team from Sail Africa understand the complexity of our work they decided to help the ICDM team with the Bike Program and we are very happy to be in such a productive partnership. When the Number Nine Team members reported back on their visits to Sail Africa they said that they were astonished to see the activities taking place at the Durban port and that this was an eye-opening experience for them. They promised to take up the chance offered by Sail Africa to learn how to sail, to engage in team work and to enable personal development.

The Number Nine's New Beginners Team have proven that they can take the sports centre forward through their dedication to the programs offered by the ICDM.  In early November they had a meeting with the councillors’ office where they presented a report about the challenges that they have faced in getting the sports centre to become what it is now. They are highly determined and they are willing to help to develop their community. The support groups have also helped this group to understand each other better as the youth engage on different matters on every Tuesday of the week.

There have been a number of other activities happening at the ICDM.  Although it is now the school holidays the kids are still coming to the centre and doing sports. Our trainers are also busy running different activities which help the organization to grow. We are also planning and running programs that deal with climate change and as soon as we have more concrete details of them we will share them with you.

Our hard working Mondli Buthelezi had a chance to go to Cape Town, where he attended a conference on partnerships between various German and South African organizations. Such networking is very critical for the growth of our organization. Mondli was given a chance to engage with other organization leaders on a number of issues facing the Civil Society Organization in South Africa and in Germany.

We are looking forward to hosting our short term international volunteers. They will all contribute towards growing our organization internationally.  We are currently looking for support for provision of a replacement car to enable us to run our activities and would like to hear from anyone who is able to help us with this matter.

Remember:

We are ICDM, we are the future!

October 2015

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!