POP Programme Projects

Video about the flagship POP Programme on Goedgedacht Farm:

The programme includes the following projects:

• Parenting skills training.
• A baby unit for vulnerable children
• A specialiased creche and pre-school (with special attention being given to the problems caused by Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Foetal Alcohol Effect. (84 children entered in 2010.)
• A Youth Project- weekly – and holiday programmes for farm youth. (139 children this past Christmas holiday.)
• An educational support project offers……school fees, uniforms, school stationery, warm clothing etc for farm children and those orphaned by AIDS.
• Self development workshops for men and for women (farm workers)
• Community activities – choir competitions, sports days. HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention courses.
• After school educational support for children.  5 days a week 4-6pm Library, access to computers. Homework  supervising. (64 children). Hot meals, showers, life skills, comfort and encouragement.
• Home Based Care Training . 15 trained carers in the community
• So far we have 8 Safe Houses for children on farms where trained farm good women who have been trained in Home Based Caring Skills look after orphans and vulnerable children over weekends when parents are drinking and become abusive, keeping them safe from harm and offering them shelter, food and a caring environment.
• Food security + 950 hungry pre-schoolers from 9 different pre-schools and sites getting a daily bowl of e-pap a highly nutritious porridge.
• The Valley Deli run by older youth makes sandwiches for 94 children each day before they leave on the school bus.  A hot meal is provided each afternoon for 64 children attending the after-school project.
• Organic Vegetable Gardens providing fresh food for pre-school and after school project as well as offering  training in vegetable gardening.
• Community Cycles. (BEN – The Bicycle Empowerment Project) Repairs and sells bicycles at low cost to rural dwellers to encourage health and rural mobility.
• Sport.  “The Valley Eagles Rugby and Netball Club” has nearly 90 members and involves members and the community in sport including more recently Indigenous Games.
• Documentation. A community worker is employed to visit farms and help farm workers to get the documents  (birth certificates for their children, Identity documents for themselves) in order to access social grants such as the Child Support Grant, Foster Care Grants, Old Age pensions.
• Saving groups being started on farms and in two small rural towns in the district.
• LOOP –‘ Weltevreden se Doen en Late’. A photo story book. 15 000 printed each month and distributed to the poorest farm workers in the Western Cape.

Each edition addresses an issue important to rural people. Brings literacy skills to farm workers as well as information.