Outreach

Progress report on the new Khayalitsha Lukhanyo Club 28th July 2013

It is with much pleasure that I am able to report that most of the arrangements for the first meeting of the Khayalitsha Lukhanyo club have finally been made, and we plan to have the first meeting of the club on Saturday 17th August starting at 1.00 pm.

Unfortunately the lkamva Labantu Wellness Centre Hall is not available for use on Saturday afternoons. We have been to see various Municipal halls, and selected the Eyetho Multi-Purpose Hall which is very suitable, well placed, and easy to get to. This hall is booked up for August and October, and is only available for our first use in November. We hope to get in early in January to make all the bookings for 2014. In the meantime, we have booked the Mandela Park CESA Church Hall for the first meeting in August. This venue is not ideal, but will be suitable for our needs. We have not had confirmation yet if it will be available for our October meeting.

The plan at the present is for the new club to meet monthly on a Saturday. The original meetings of Lukhanyo in the Salt River Civic hall will still be on going for September and December, during these months, the Khayalitsha club will skip their meetings. As for the meetings at Salt River for 2014, no decision has thus far been made for the continuation of these meetings. Funding for this is going to be a problem. Should all go well with the Khayalitsha Club, we would like to move on to starting another club in either Nyanga or Gugulethu. This will depend on the Lotto grant being extended.

Vuyo Masenga our "Home Visitor" has recruited over 50 potential members, who hopefully will all attend. This past Friday, we met with an interim committee group of ten Blind and visually impaired persons to discuss the final arrangements, and to get some input as to what they would like the meetings to provide.

The initial plan was that the first meeting would have some light entertainment and one or two speakers to inform members about the various facilities and services that were available to the Blind and visually impaired people living in Khayalitsha.After some discussion it was felt that the money allocated for entertainment, should rather be put towards transporting the members to the club. One of the committee members has volunteered to organise this, and will give us a cost quotation early this week. An organization called Phambile which offers training for Blind and Disabled persons living in Khayalitsha, has its own bus and driver, and could be available for this transport.

All agreed that just soft music in the background would be preferable. At future meetings, we could get someone to sing a few songs, perform some music, or give a talk on something of interest. It was also suggested that we consider some form of games for the members to participate in.

Vuyo has been asked to try and get some local volunteers to help with serving and assisting the members at meetings. The emphasis should at all times be to make use of the local community to provide the services such as catering, transport and equipment for club meetings and activities.

The general consensus of the committee was that we should start off by feeling our way, and not make too many decisions about activities until we had the opinions of the members attending.

For the first meeting we would serve a plate of sandwiches, with warm snacks for each member, followed by a cup of coffee or tea. . It was suggested that a cup of hot soup and a buttered roll as a starter might be considered, this would depend on the budget available.