In Q4 2008 the Golder Trust for Orphans donated $12,500 US to Bulembu Ministries in Swaziland to help pay for the immediate renovation of several orphans’ homes in the community of Bulembu.

We recently received this thank you message from the staff at Bulembu Ministries!

2008 was a year for laying foundations and properly establishing production processes and infrastructure. Although Bulembu Honey experienced rapid growth, quickly making it the largest producer in the country, growth now needs to be shifted and focused on sales.
The honey export market is lucrative and if tapped into will provide substantial returns. Therefore, with increasing production capacities, Bulembu Honey is poised to make profits. Bulembu Honey is also selling empty bee boxes. During 2008 over 175 were sold.

The Bulembu community continues to expand in multiple areas. The Bulembu school now has over 150 children and opened a new complex in January 2009 with the capacity for 450 students in 21 classrooms. The Orphan Care program is launching its next phase of homes (12) ready to care for children in spring 2009. The Bulembu Clinic will offer a 24 hour service next year, adding the assistance of a full time doctor and an ambulance in emergency situations.

New enterprises including a water bottling plant and agriculture production were launched and are beginning to produce. In early 2009 a community dairy project will be launched starting with 20 cows producing milk for the orphan care program and the community.

Since its inception in May 2006, Bulembu has created over 500 jobs in the community and is now caring for over 150 children. In 2009 that care is expected to extend to another 100 children.

Impacts like this are only possible because of thoughtful contributions from organisations like the Golder Trust for Orphans. Your gift makes it possible for us to continue our vision to create a totally self-sustaining community, restoring health, education, commerce and providing care for children. 

Carlos’s Mission is situated nearly half way up the Mozambique coast 600 km north of Maputo and 15 kilometres inland from the sea. The mission is between the two main centres of Inhambane and Vilanculos. The main tar road has more potholes than tar in places and the dirt track (20km) leading to the mission is overgrown in places by the prolific tropical bush.

Carlos, who runs the mission, left Mozambique during the civil war and settled in South Africa. In 2003 he decided to return to Mozambique and returned to his family home. He managed to get his father’s land of 10 hectares returned to him by the government where the mission is currently situated. On returning he found that some of the children of his extended family had been orphaned and he took them into his home and cared for them.

On further investigation he realised that there were many orphaned children in the surrounding area that were being cared for by the communities as best they could but they were in critical need for support and so he started the mission.

There is hardly any wildlife in the area around the Mission. There is a real shortage of food as most of it has been killed and eaten. Carlos is in the process of developing his land and has started building the required infrastructure. Currently he is growing a plot of maize (corn), vegetables and pineapples. He has planted a number of fruit trees including a small plantation of pawpaws. He sells his surplus vegetables and fruit to the surrounding community. There is a well on the mission which supplies water for domestic use and for irrigation water to the crops.

Recently, with the help of the Golder Trust for Orphans he has started rearing day old chickens and then selling live grown chickens to the community. He has built a chicken house and is on his third batch of 400 chicks that he is rearing.

Carlos has also managed to purchase material that a community member will sew into school uniforms for the orphans. The mission also helps to pay for school fees for the children and in so doing attempts to give holistic support to the children.

Carlos’ chicken business is profitable and its viability is improving with each batch as Carlos learns how to become more efficient in his production methods. The surrounding community is getting to know about his chickens and his market is increasing all the time. It is planned to expand the chicken production to have three separate houses of 400 chickens so that he can get more of a continuity of supply. One of the main costs and constraints to the chicken production is the lighting of the chicken houses at night which helps the chickens grow quicker and so reduces production costs. Currently power is supplied by a small generator which uses five litres of fuel per night which is expensive and very difficult to obtain. The option of using solar power is being looked at as an alternative.

With the money that Carlos gets from the sale of fruit, vegetables and chickens he buys food that he can distribute to the households that are looking after orphans. Carlos has a list of 166 children that are either orphans or are classified as vulnerable children in the community. This list has been verified by the community leaders to make sure that no one takes advantage of the support given. The children themselves are required to come and fetch the food, which they will then give to the household that is taking care of them. The plan is to be able to distribute food in this way every two weeks.

Carlos does not have a computer so has no web site. For more information about the Mission Station of Carlos Vilanculos send an email to GolderTrustforOrphans@golder.com.

Since the beginning of August, the Farm has been busy preparing for the 2008 harvest season; this meant that the forage harvester needed to be in working order, all 4 tractors have to work and the trailers need to be adjusted to be able to take bigger loads. It is a bit like a circus really! It only happens once a year and if there are no mechanical failures, good weather conditions and dry farm roads we usually finish within 3-4 weeks. If the situation is ideal we only stop the forage harvester in the evening as it gets dark and we fill and cover the silage pit after 3-5 days of harvesting.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case this year. The last week of August saw us starting off very well. The silage harvest was going on well and on a speedy note but when September rolled around, things went down hill.

The first two weeks of the month it rained nearly on a daily basis- a total of 136 mm up till the 14th of September. Off-loading the trailers with the chopped maize is done manually, so when it rains we have to stop. Furthermore, the amount of rainfall in such a short period causes the roads to become impassable and some of the maize fields were water logged. In such situations, we are required to wait for 1-2 days for dry weather in order to continue, which delays the whole process.

The third week of September, FarmChem-Seedlinks a Kenyan based company selling farm inputs like maize and vegetable seeds, used our small holder unit (zero grazing unit) to demonstrate some of their maize and vegetable varieties to farmers from within the district.

Having seen the small-holder unit (a small farm of about 1 ha. that caters for 2 cows) they then visited the large scale farming system on Baraka Farm. The farmers were very interested in the dairy cows; we explained to them how the cows are kept, fed and taken care of from the day they are born until the day they have their first baby calf. The biggest obstacle to improved milk production in this area of Kenya is the little/poor fodder that is available for the animals. Thanks to the Golder Trust for Orphans, we are able to maintain a very good system on the farm and are exploring growing our dairy business to include cheese production. We are looking forward to discussing this project further with the Golder Trust for Orphans in early 2009.

Since May, the Home has admitted a total of 13 children in total; 4 babies – all of whom were abandoned and taken to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), 3 from Eldoret Street Rehabilitation Program and the remaining 6 from the internally displaced families as a result of the 2007 post-election violence.

The (6) six children were abandoned by their mother at the Eldoret Show ground-IDP camp.

The father, a shoe-shiner and the sole breadwinner, could not afford to meet all the family’s needs, as he too was living at the camp. As a result, the father would spend most of his time trying to look for ways to feed his children, which meant leaving the children alone for long periods of time.

The eldest girl (age 12) would take care of her 5 siblings in the harsh environment of the IDP camp.

All our children in school are doing their best in school. We managed to attend academic meetings, personal school visits and reviewed all progress report forms of all our children for the second term.

Many thanks to the Golder Trust for Orphans recent donation, which was used to purchase the supplies necessary to refurbish our children’s dormitory.