Soweto, June 2015

Greetings from COLD Soweto, South Africa.

In Winter we always realize that Johannesburg is 1800m above sea level, it is even cold for a German. We are sitting in the office at our computers, wearing our big winter jackets. Since Easter we are renting an office in an very old Church building of the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa, too bad windows are allmost all closed with bricks and no sunshine is warming up the room. Nevertheless we are in an office where we can work safe and freely with progress.

Our office in the Church in Orlando East, Soweto

At times we also suffer from load shedding, a common problem in Southern Africa, so we have to leave the office early, but good for us it doesnt happen too often, or let‘s say not yet.

Rendani Nthangeni is working for us since August 2014. He supported the work of Utho Ngathi while he studied at the University of Johannesburg. Rendani completed his degree in Community Develoment and Leadership in November 2014. Currently we spend a lot of our time in the office as we are busy to develop Utho Ngathi Disability Projects and try to set a footprint in the disability sector to benefit more persons with disabilities. Personally i miss our trips to the rural parts of South Afrika and Zambia, the times in villages when we meet persons with disabilities and their families; that are the times where we have a chance to directly impact their lives. We realize that the activities of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects have great value to many people and we are working hard to impact even more lives of persons with disabilities.

Through intensiv office work and the opportunity to attend many meetings in the disability sector, especially with the close working relationship with the Department of Social Development, many more doors are opened to give us opportunities to find platforms to talk about the vision and activities of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects. More people become aware of the challenges and opportunities of persons with disabilities in our African Society and much more has to be done to make inclusion and meaningful participation the reality for the lives of more and more persons with disabilities. In August 2014 we had the opportunity to talk to all the German companies presented at the German Chamber of Commerce in Johannesburg.

Rendani in Winter Jacket at 12 degree.

Masauso at his desk with a little sunshine coming in

We met the CEO of Sub Saharan Africa of EVONIK, a big international German company. The Gentleman got very excited about our activities and invited us to their office where we discussed possible funding opportunities from EVONIK to Utho Nagthi Disability Projects. The partnership developed since then and 3 young people were selected, got a specialized wheelchair and in August will be a official handing over ceremony with the CEO of EVONIK, who will be coming from Germany, and we are all invited to this great event. The support by EVONIK is even going further, on the 18th of August the company is hosting a Charity Golf Day in Centurion/ Pretoria for the benefit of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects. With the raised funds, we will be able to buy more specialized wheelchairs and more young people will benefit from the quality wheelchairs from CE Mobility. Ce Mobility is the South African company manufacturing the assistive devices and supporting Utho Ngathi Disability Projects over many years.

Below is a small piece of what Mjabuliseni Mbanjwa known as MJ told us not so long ago after he received his wheelchair: “A few days ago I was called to the headmaster’s office at my school in Soweto and the headmaster congratulated me for better academic results in this term of my Grade 11. My headmaster asked me why I got better results so sudden and I answered proudly that I get encouraged through the support from the team of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects as well as the support I got from Evonik through the donation of a perfect wheelchair for my disability. The official handing over of the wheelchair with Utho Ngathi Disability Projects , Evonik and the Wheelchair company CE Mobility made me realize, that I am supported as the person MJ and not because I am disabled. I got proud of myself and so confident, realizing that I can achieve much more in the future. I thank Evonik, CE Mobility and Utho Ngathi Disability Projects for their life changing support.”

Handing Over Ceremony with MJ and EVONIK

I hope this short story from MJ will give you new motivation to continue supporting Utho Ngathi Disability Projects and you are encouraged to talk more about our vision, activities and great achivements in the lives of persons with disabilities.

We would like to thank all other supporters and friends in South Africa and Zambia for their kind continious support. We allways meet people who are touched by the life changing activities of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects and we need to encourage more individuals and companies to support our work. You can read, that the work of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects is still thriving and continues besides many set backs and challenges we are facing. Your good thoughts and prayers are giving us strength to face those challenges every day. Here some information of our current activities in the different areas in South Africa and Zambia. Eastern Cape Province, South Africa We are implementing a very exciting project in the village area of Macubeni. Through funding from the National Lottery in South Africa we were able to roll out an awareness campaign in the villages of Macubeni, where we had implemented a comprehensive research with the Provincial Government of the Eastern Cape Province in 2010. With the funding available and through continuous contact with the leadership of Macubeni, we decided to go back to this poverty stricken region and very remote rural area of Macubeni with 18 villages and over 15 000 people. There is very little support structure in place, especially for persons with disabilities. The region in the mountains outside Lady Frere, has very low temperatures in winter, little rainfalls, little vegetation and even yesterday it was snowing in the area. You can beleive that persons with disabilities suffer most under such conditions. In addition to the awareness campaign and the development of more inclusive mindsets in the communities of Macubeni we trained 11 home based carers in all aspects of disability. In the last 10 months these community members with a great interest to assist and develop persons with disabilities, were visiting homes of persons with diasbilities. They checked on the accessibility of the homes, assessed the health and disability status of the persons visited and gave basic therapy excercises to the persons. Through these regular visits, the lifes of the persons with disabilities improved and the families and community members developed a inclusive mindsets to integrate persons with disabilities into every aspect of family and community life. In July the Utho Ngathi Team will travel to Macubeni and hand out 20 wheelchairs and different therapy and sports equipments to persons with disabilities, identified by our home based carers. We will also celebrate this day with a meal for all the people who were part of this program over the last 12 months, a sheep will be slottered and the home based careres will be honoured for their tireles work, to assist persons with disabilities in their own villages.

We are proud of this unique project and the implementation through home based carers trained through our own training manual. For the first time home based carers are trained to work with person with disabilities and their families in rural villages and we wish and pray Utho Ngathi Disability Projects will find more opprtunities and funding to roll this program in other regions of South Africa. We have sad news from our project in Mpeko, 30 km outside Mthatha. A few weeks ago a hail storm hit the village area and our greenhouse tunnels, which are producing spinach with the inclusion of persons with disabilities, were badly damaged. Now we have to raise R20 000 to replace the plastic sheets of the green house tunnels and we need your help and support for this project. We urge you to assist us with the repair of our greenhouse tunnels. If you have any means to donate some funds for this urgently needed repairs, please contact us or if you know any individuals or companies who could help with this request, knowing that we are also a registerred for tax rebate as a Section 18A charity organisation. We are very thankful to Rotary Club Mthatha for their continuous support. Every year Utho Ngathi Disability Projects benefits from kind donations from the Club. At the beginning of this year members of the Rotary Club came to our center in Mpeko and repaired all doors and windows and electrified the center. This support is highly appreciated as through such renovations the center can be used by persons with disabilities and other community members for many more years to come. Boarding Facility In Simunzele, Southern Province of Zambia During our last 2 visits to Zambia in January and May, we managed to buy all necessary equipment and material to finish the first phase of our boarding facility, the dormitory for the children with disabilities and the accomodation for the house mothers. In the last 6 months we had several occasion where our children could visit the school and our boarding facility and get a first hand impression about the facilities which will be their home for the school terms from June 2015. During the last visit at the boarding facility most of the children didnt even want to go back to their homes, they cried and asked if they could stay allready and start going to the school. I allways say that our children will have for the first time in their lives their own pillow on their own bed, will sleep in their own blanket, our kids will have three good meals every day and most important everybody will know their names. It is sad to realize that children with disabilities are often not known by other community members and nobody knows their names. This will change now with this unique project of the inclusion of 13 children at a rural school and their accomodation provided in a accesible well equipped boarding house.

I wish you could, one day, come and visit our children in the boarding facility, the joy and happiness in their eyes is touching my life everytime i think of our children or visit them in their villages in Zambia. If you find a chance to visit our children it will touch your lives deeply and forever. I think it is very imortant to mention the names of our children, we are proud of all of them and here are their names. 9 children moved into the boarding house 3 weeks ago and the other 4 kids will follow soon. We had to make it an rule that their families had to bring a bag of maize with a smal amount of money for the acceptance at the school, all the families accepted this condition. They are all very proud and even thankful to Utho Ngathi Disability Projects and all our supporters that their children have now the great opportunity to receive education and a safe and home enviroment at our boarding house. Oscar Mudenda, George Mudenda, Happy Simuunza, Iless Mudenda, Anna Chiswili, Alumbwe, Ernester, Mirriam Mwizani and Vista Muleya are staying at the facility and are included in school. Sodimico Masilini und Buumba Masilini, Lwate Mweetwa und Memory Mweetwa will join the other children soon.

Utho Ngathi Disability Projects has to pay a stipend for three house mothers and the food for the 13 children for the period of three months. The Ministry of Education in Zambia didn‘t allocate the house mothers to the facility, but we felt the children should start to benefit form the boarding house and the inclusion at the school as we have set up all the nessesary for the Children to get included in this holistic project. We have asked our chairperson in Zambia, Moses Malunda, and our Board Member Annie Ngwira, to try to talk to some Government Officials to speed up the prozess of the allocation of house mothers and the provision of funds for the operation of the boarding facility including the daily food for the children. Sadly it seems that children with disabilities are still not cared for to the level as needed and Governments are still slow in prozessing the implementation of inclusive programs. We are on the long road to changes and i can assure you, that the inclusive project in the small village of Simunzele has allready changed the mindset of community members and very important it is changing the mindset of leaders of the communities to impact on the bigger picture.

After putting in funds, hard work and love into this inclusion project it is exciting to see the happy children and the changing mindset of community members. The funds were donated by the Rotary Club and some business owners in my home town. From the beginning there was the emphasis on some possible sustainability and food security for the children with disabilities and a green house was constructed. Currently our staff member Andrew works with teachers and children from the school to produce enough tomatoes and cabbage for the consumption at the school, our boarding facility and for sales to other community members. With the

sales the house mothers can buy other groceries to add to the feeding scheme of the school.

Donations for a new used Project Vehicle

Since January we were facing a big challenge. During a trip to the rural villages of the Eastern Cape, loaded with wheelchairs and crutches for persons with disabilities, our Toyota Hilux had a serious breakdown after now allmost 400 000 km usage of this vehicle. We had to spend a lot of money for repairs and even got donations from CE Mobility and a good friend with his wife from East London, as the costs could not be coverred by our donations from Germany. After a call for special fundraising towards a new project vehicle the supporters in Germany took this task very serious and raised enough money for the purchase of a used Toyota Fortuner. We manged to purchse a 8 months old Fortuner and we are only lacking the funds for a sattelite tracker and insurance for the vehicle. We are very thankful to all the people, who donated funds towards the new project vehicle and we can assure you that the Fortuner will be used to continue driving on the road to changes for the benefit of many persons with disabilites in South Africa and Zambia. We are proud of the wide support base we have created over the last years and in a challenging situation many supporters come together and pull of a great fundraising effort with an amazing result as you can see on the two pictures below.

A few personal words at the end:

Its 2015 and we realized that there is a lot to celebrate this year.

Utho Ngathi Disability Projects is turning 10!!!!

Masauso spend 15 years in South Africa as my Colleague and Brother

Andreas has now lived and worked 25 years of his life in Southern Africa.

It was a very formative, touching and often difficult time, but what we have achieved together with all the

friends and supporters of Utho Ngathi, has changed the lives of many persons with disabilities in Southern

Africa. We also have worked on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in their families and

communities they live in, especially in very rural areas in South Africa and Zambia and thus changed the

consciousness of the people and caused understanding about disability in the hearts and minds of the

people of these different communities and beyond.

In all the years we've managed to put all our love and strength into our project activities through your

support and God’s Blessings. They were very intense years for me personally and Masauso as well, but of

course also for our families and friends back home in Germany and Zambia, who were, all this years, fully

behind us and supported us even in very difficult times and over the long geographic distance.

It is still my concern and vision that the “A Road to Changes” program continues and that we walk this

road together. To this end, our activities in Utho Ngathi Disability Projects need your good thoughts and

donations and I hope that you will continue supporting us and have love, passion and the power to do so.

A few words about the people who will continue touching our lives:

If a child with a severe disability lives in a village in Zambia, where there is no medical care and no

physiotherapy, then Utho Ngathi has much to do to create an alternative. We can give the child an intense

home based care and through that support, welfare and love we can change the child's world for a better

future.

When we got to visit an old woman, who lost her hands and feet through leprosy disease, we got touched

by her spirit. With our visits and the help of a wheelchair we gave hope back into the old ladies live. Her

life will still be with unbelievable hardship in deep poverty, but her spirit touched my life and for sure

would touch yours as well if you would have met her.

These stories of people we meet in our journey of Utho Ngathi Disability Projects should encourage us all

to continue living the dream and vision of our organisation.

Think of us and pray for us and the many people we are meeting on our ROAD TO CHANGES!

The Utho Ngathi Team