History

Our Vision

Flourishing communities filled with dignity and hope

Mission Statement

To be the facilitators of change that assist in bringing hope to and enabling the impoverished to rise above their circumstances by educating, equipping, capacitating and empowering them to draw out the best within themselves and thereby effectively uplifting the community and combating poverty.

Follow the steps of our journey…

Abounding Hope is an organization that reaches the underprivileged in our local communities of the Ray Nkonyeni municipality of the UGU district district.

With a God given vision, our work began in the community of kwaMasinenge on the 10 April 2011, where we took the initiative and started to investigate how we could help and improve the lives of those living in the kwaMasinenge informal settlement. After examining several options, it was determined that a garden project would be the most relevant starting point in developing the relationships and trust required to proceed with any large-scale projects within the community.

The Garden Project…

The Garden Project began on the 14th July 2011, and our long-term plan was to use the vegetables from this garden to assist the soup kitchen in Masinenge for the TB and HIV infected people, and to eventually also feed the most-hard pressed in the community.

The garden project ran successfully for two years through the selling of the vegetables thanks to the support of Siyavuna Development Centre (SDC), who agreed to use us as one of their Co-operatives.

Our produce was 100% organic and we became part of the broader community farmer’s co-op.

After two successful years, the stipend for the volunteers ceased and as further funding for the project was difficult to attain, the garden project was put on hold and later restarted on a micro scale to supplement the Soup Kitchen which it currently still does to this day.

The Soup Kitchen…

After the closure of the garden project due to lack of funding, Shirley focused on ministering door to door within the community, which at this time was possible due to the good relationships she had established there.

During her visits it became apparent that one of the biggest challenges facing the community was lack of good nutritional support, especially for the infirm and critical cases, (those suffering from HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes and cancer).

Before the garden project had started, a soup kitchen had existed which at that time was defunct, in so much that it only operated sporadically when donations were made available.

Shirley took the initiative to rebuild and reorganize the soup kitchen with the support of local businesses and donors who continue to provide material support, as well as financial support from interested stakeholders who supply the basic food staples. The soup kitchen currently has been running efficiently since 2014.

We even were able to expand the soup kitchen in 2017 and have a permanent volunteer cook. It currently provides meals for approximately 30-50 people, who are chronically ill, one meal a day, four days a week.

The Creche…

Another massive challenge within the community was the lack of early childhood development. The community had a creche, but it had no ECD program, no formal government support, no trained teachers and was operating as a day care.

Give a Child a Family (GCF) sponsored an ECD program called brain boosters and provided training for two teachers. The Brain Booster program is designed to be interactive with the parents and the family as a whole. This was early 2014. Shortly after this, disaster struck, and the main teacher passed away due to illness.

The entire ECD program was put on hold due to the unavailability of committed volunteers from the local community. We continued to support the creche feeding scheme as funding was made available, so the children wouldn’t go hungry.

In August 2016 we became officially registered as a non-profit organization which drew the attention of a single large donor who was very interested in the upliftment of both the creche and the greater community.

Then in 2017 we were able to acquire a teacher with two assistants who after training started implementing the Brain Booster program. The creche currently hosts about 40 children between the ages of 3-5 at any one time.

The creche was registered as its own NPO in 2018 and is managed by a creche committee that consists of members of the community.