Life-skills Program
At three community day care centers: Happy Hours, (Hammarsdale) Sisonke (Dassenhoek) and Auckland and KwaDengezi Khethiwe is providing a life-skills program to children and teenagers with cognitive and sometimes concurrent physical impairments. These centre are situated in the district between 12 and 35km away.
Visiting these centre is order to follow up on Clients of Khethiwe who are currently attending, we discovered that the only training that the staff members have is in early childhood development. With pupils ranging in ages from 5-28 years it was obvious that these children are extremely vulnerable in the community. At each Centre we now run a monthly life-skills based programme with the children.
Khethiwe started developing a life-skills based programme to prepare these vulnerable children in at least a few aspect for coping in the broader society. Visiting each centre once monthly, Khethiwe has developed programs round themes of: “I am Special” self-acceptance and self-image; personal hygiene and wellbeing; helping at home; safety- including stranger danger, calling for help’ emergencies, fire; road safety; shopping; gardening; healthy eating and a sports day. These sessions have all been done practically and each centre is provided with the year plan and encouraged to continue with the themes. We have also encouraged t
Each session has a gross motor, a fine motor, a cognitive, a language and an environmental aspect. For gross motor each month we do a brief exercise class as weight is a challenge for these young people. Every month also has a story related to the theme and comprehension questions. The improvement in listening skills has been remarkable at some centres. We have encouraged the children to see their job as being caretakers of the environment in terms of waste collection, recycling, making eco bricks and planting in old bottles, and create from waste fine motor activities.
Khethiwe has provided resources for the centres in terms of stationary sourced from local schools at the end of the year as well as many book, and run sessions on using books with children who are unable to read.
Workshops have been run by Khethiwe for our mothers, which the staff have been included in. These have been to date on toy- making from waste, crocheting from plastic and a workshop on using a set of Wide Eye school readiness resources which we donated to each centre as we had been donated a number. Khethiwe is currently piloting a life-coaching course with some mothers which may also be able to be opened to the staff. Our outreach projects have impacted significantly on the care centres in local communities
